


Sam I Am

by pinkphoenix1985



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, Sam I Am, Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-23
Updated: 2011-09-23
Packaged: 2017-10-25 17:36:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/272976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkphoenix1985/pseuds/pinkphoenix1985
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Season 6 AU. Sam Winchester was rescued from the deepest depths of hell with no memories of his past and ended up living with family, who were more like strangers and who seemed to have their own plans for him. Fortunately for Sam, he gets help from an unknown source and in the process starts to discover more about himself and who he really is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to thank for being an incredible mod. And I want to thank for being a fantastic beta. I did some corrections afterwards so the remaining mistakes are mine. Lastly, I want to thank my artist, who did the most wonderful art for the story. There are additional author notes at the end of the story.

Nothing penetrated the thick frozen heat of the darkness surrounding his prison aside from his own screams and the voices. Occasionally, one of the voices would sneer and pierce the silence with a loud laugh and say to him, “For such a peaky nuisance, you are _way_ too easy to break.”

After the haunting laughter, pain would come. He hated the boiling agony of the torture mostly due to The Voice singing and humming softly as disembodied hands tore at his flesh. He would try and untangle his aching limbs from their places tied to the posts he was always tied to. His throbbing muscles, already buckling under the strain of keeping him sustained in space, would send even more agonizing pain throughout his entire body. As he tried to free himself dislocating his shoulder in the process, he only made The Voice laugh with glee and say, “That pesky body part was the last thing to worry you, right, Sammy m’boy? We have such fun together don’t you think?”

He assumed that he was this Sammy person, but sometimes he wished with all his being and sanity that he wasn’t Sammy.

According to The Voice, Sammy was the root of all evil and he brought all of this on himself. Sometimes, The Voice would pat him on the head and say, “It wasn’t your entire fault. I know that it was Dean who put you up to it. It is a shame—you and I could have been brilliant together ruling the world.”

Those times were the worst since then The Voice would be exceptionally cruel in torturing him. It was probably The Voice’s attempt at getting back at this Dean whoever he was. He wasn’t afraid to admit to himself that yeah, sometimes he wished that it were Dean here instead of him.

When he thought that it couldn’t get much worse than it already was, a second voice would join the first. This voice had a particular obsession—Dean. Voice #2 would insist that he answer to the name Dean. He especially hated this since once he played along, Voice #2 would delight in new kinds of torture just to see him break anew. As a result, he always tried to refuse to play along with Voice #2’s game. On occasion, it occurred to him that maybe his refusal wasn’t all self-preservation—at times he felt like he had to protect this Dean from Voice #2.

Nonetheless, Voice #2’s favorite times were when he would break down, forgetting that he was supposed to be Dean and start begging for Dean to come and save him.

Dean never did.

~~~~~~

Being suspended in the thick darkness with only the mocking voices and torture to keep him company, time seemed to crawl by slowly, for an eternity. At least, that’s what it felt like to him.

So when light suddenly hit him, stabbing the darkness viciously, causing The Voices to shriek and stop the torture, he didn’t know whether to be glad or nervous. This was something new, something that had never happened before. Could it be a new form of torture? Maybe to get his hopes up that everything would stop and then hit him with some new pain?

He didn’t know and didn’t care. It was nice to be out of the darkness and in the warm heat of the light, but it was…odd, somehow, without the torture. He had become so used to it by now.

Rough, careless hands grabbed him, and he didn’t fight them. He was bone tired and weak from the constant torture. “Be a little more gentle with him. Who knows what Lucifer and Michael did to him,” a soothing voice whispered.

It occurred to him that it was a weird sound. The previous voices had always seemed to be set on either loud or screaming. Whoever this voice belonged to must have been the one in charge since he immediately was handled a little more with care. Then, he was placed on to a soft cushiony surface, his arms by his side—a bed. It took him a few minutes to get used to it since he had completely forgotten what it was like to lay on a bed. He couldn’t rest much since the hands quickly returned, along with some clean towels and water. They immediately started to wash him, getting off all the blood and sweat. It wasn’t the most relaxing thing to endure, but it was very much preferred to the torture he went through for so long.

As the hands worked on cleaning him up, he tried to look beyond them to catch a glimpse of the people who had rescued him. The warm light shone brightly into his eyes blocking the figures from his gaze, all he saw were the hands.

“Um…ah…where…” He stammered. He couldn’t get his tongue to obey his brain. He supposed that it was due to the fact that he hadn’t uttered a word in who knows how long. The voices weren’t the best of conversation companions, preferring to hear him scream instead of having a discussion with him.

The second time he opened his mouth to speak, one of the hands presented a glass of water to him which he drank greedily. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he was. As he finished the glass, his stomach grumbled angrily. He felt his cheeks heat up with embarrassment, but within a few seconds, a plate of food was presented to him as well. After he was cleaned, watered, and fed to their satisfaction, the hands left him alone. He tried to look around him and get some clue where he was. All he could see surrounding his bed was a glowing light.

 _Could it be heaven?_ He wondered to himself. Almost immediately, he shook his head. _No. This isn’t heaven._ How he knew that for a fact, he wasn’t sure, but somehow he was certain about this. Deciding to go and explore, he swung his legs over to the side of the bed. As soon as his legs touched the glowing floor, a sharp pain ran up his body from his feet. He yelped in surprise. Whoever rescued him wasn’t too friendly, he supposed.

“Who would stop someone from getting out of bed?” A thin and faint voice asked. He glanced around surprised. Who else was here with him? “Hello?” the same voice asked. Again, he looked around him and saw no one.

“Ah, son. I see that we rescued you just in time. You’re starting to talk to yourself. Not the greatest sign of sanity.” The same soothing voice from before replied.

Shaken, he tried to catch a glimpse of where the voice was coming from. It seemed like the voice was coming from everywhere.

“Who…are…you?” he croaked out softly.

“Who am I is not of any importance. What is important is that you pass your judgment test and get back to Earth.”

As the voice spoke, the hands returned and none too gently pushed him back down onto the bed.

“What judgment test? What are you talking about?”

“Hush, now. It will be over in a few seconds,” was all the warning he got before white-hot energy pieced his body, heading towards his mind and soul. All he saw were bright multi-colored lights fluttering across his vision. He lay unconscious while the light searched his soul.

Another man entered the room. He was dressed in robes along with a hood that covered his head. As he watched the light search the man’s inner mind and soul, he knew that it was going to be a long time until this man could find some peace. People were simply judged in this place—judged whether they should go to Hell or Heaven—but this man was unique. His body was tainted with the blood of Hell while his soul sang of the purity of Heaven. This man was also the exception to the rule. He would be sent back to Earth, because he had no place as of yet in Heaven or Hell. What he had done to get to this place was not all of his doing and as such he didn’t belong in either place.

Unfortunately, the soul was weak and unable to continue residing in the body. It was unprecedented to be sure, but something needed to be done so that this man could have a complete and total recovery from his ordeal. It was decided—separate between body and soul so that both could heal and eventually be joined again.

~~~~~~

It smelled.

As he came to, the first thing that he was aware of--was the smell. It smelled of people, of living. It smelled of gun grease and aftershave.

He had forgotten about that smell. The one unique to humans. Neither the torture place nor the glowing place had this smell.

It made him feel safe. With that thought, he slowly opened his eyes.

He was lying on a mental bed with a thin mattress. He was covered with a thin gray blanket. The walls were made of iron as far as he could tell and on the ceiling there was an opening with a weird looking star-shaped fan gently spinning. Besides the bed he was currently lying on, there was a table with an assortment of medical supplies and a single chair. There was a door made of steel which presumably led outside from wherever he was.

He checked himself over. Gone were all the signs of torture, leaving smooth unblemished skin. He felt fine physically except for a hollow feeling in his mind, which he assumed was probably due to the fact that he didn’t know who he was. He didn’t know his name or why he was being kept here, amongst other things. He was alone in the room for now, but he had no idea what or who would come through that door, so he had to be prepared. He wouldn’t let himself be tortured yet again like he was in that horrible place with The Voices, or submit to what he had in that glowing place.

He got up from the bed and walked to the door, but found it had nothing to open it with from the inside. As he was standing there, wondering how he would get the door open, it did just that as a young brunette stepped into the room. She was carrying a tray of food.

“Oh hello, Stranger. I was just coming to see if you needed anything,” she greeted, smiling at him.

She didn’t look threatening but then he wasn’t going to take any chances.

“Who are you?” he asked.

She smiled in reply, “Hun, I’m your second cousin, Gwen. I know that you don’t know me but I do hope that we become good friends in addition to us being family.”

He looked at her, like she had seven heads.

“Hun, I need you to move back a step.” Gwen said looking up at him, “I’m not going to bite you.”

A little stunned to say the least by this woman who talked like she knew him, he stepped back and let her come further into the room.

She walked to the table and laid down the tray of food.

“I just made it. You should eat it while it’s still hot.”

He nodded as he turned to join her at the table. This was all very odd to him. He know about familial connections somehow, but him having a cousin seemed to be unusual. As if before losing his self, he didn’t have a cousin to speak of.

“Gwen.” Both of them turned around at the sound. Standing there was a tall, bald man. He stepped into the room and nodded at Gwen.

Taking that as her cue to leave, Gwen grinned at both men and left.

The man smiled and said, “Gwen takes some time to get used to. I guess that you’re wondering why and what you’re doing here.”

He nodded.

“Well, let me start from the beginning. Your name is Samuel Winchester. You prefer to go by Sam.”

 _Sam Winchester._ The name felt right. He supposed that it was good a name as any. It was better than that, it was _his_ name. Something that belonged to him.

Still pondering the fact that he now had a name to call his own, he tuned back into the conversation, “…And I’m your namesake and grandfather, Samuel Campbell.”

“You’re my grandfather?” Sam asked puzzled. He might not know much about himself but something told him that having a grandfather was new to him. Not to mention the odd feeling he had that something was missing inside of him.

Samuel frowned, “You really don’t know anything do you?”

Sam nodded.

“Well, son, you are family and there’s nothing more than that we, Campbells, value more than family. You’re safe with us. Is there anything else you’d like to know?” Samuel asked.

“Yeah, um, do I have any family besides you and Gwen?” Sam asked curiously.

Samuel hesitated, “Yes, there are your other cousins, Mark, Christian, and Johnny…”

“Johnny? Somehow I know that name. I don’t know why though.” Sam wondered out loud.

Samuel looked uncomfortable but replied, “Well, your daddy’s name was John. Maybe you’re remembering something.”

Sam thought about it and he got a glimpse of blond hair and hazel green eyes.

“He has blond hair doesn’t he?” He asked Samuel.

Samuel shook his head. “No, he had dark brown hair like yours. You’re thinking of your brother, Dean.”

“Dean.” Sam whispered. Just saying that name brought a sense of peace to Sam. As if just uttering the name made him feel safe.

Sam was swept into a memory— _He saw himself as a little boy with a chubby small body and tiny hands being lovingly tucked into bed by a older boy—Dean. Dean was not much older than Sam—maybe four or five years because he had to climb onto the bed just to be able to tuck Sam in properly. Sam heard his own childish voice beg for a bedtime story and insisting that he wasn’t tired. Dean gently denied all of Sam’s requests while picking up a children’s book from the bedside table. He snuggled close to Sam and started to read out loud._

Sam came out of the memory, feeling that he wanted to see Dean now-- he might not know who Dean was but he felt that he could be trusted. But before he could ask Samuel about where Dean was, a young man came down the stairs towards them.

“Samuel, we have got a sighting.” The young man said to Samuel.

Samuel nodded and turned to head up back the stairs, but then he remembered that Sam was still standing there waiting. “Ah, Sam this is Christian. He’ll get you settled in okay? I just have to go and deal with this right now.” With that said, Samuel turned and headed up the stairs.

“That’s the life of a hunter, right?” Christian said to Sam shrugging his shoulders. “Come on, I’ll show you where you’ll be staying.”

As they started to head up the stairs, Sam asked, “Hunting? Aren’t there seasons for that kind of thing?”

“Wow, Samuel wasn’t kidding when he mentioned that you might not know stuff.” Christian replied. “I’m not sure that I should be the one to tell you this, but you come from a family of hunters. We hunt supernatural creatures.”

As Christian talked, Sam vaguely recalled a journal filled of entries and pictures of creatures. It was an old and obviously well used journal. A thought occurred to him that the journal seemed to be very familiar and somehow connected to him. When they reached the top of the stairs, Sam could see that the walls were of a rusty brown color and the place had a feeling of being deserted. Whomever he had ended up with, they didn’t clean up after themselves. The place felt very alien like it wasn’t a home to anyone. Sam walked down the hall behind Christian. They passed one or two rooms which looked as if they were a weird combination between being a bedroom/a library office. Another room looked like a weapon room since it had weapons lying on every surface available and it strongly smelled of gun grease.

Christian stopped at the last door in the hallway. “Here’s where you’ll stay,” he said, stepping back so that Sam could enter the room. It wasn’t much—Sam had a bed and a dresser. Turning around to admire the room, Sam smiled at Christian. “It’s okay.”

Letting out a booming laugh, Christian replied, “It’ll have to be! We don’t cater to great luxuries in the Compound. Come on—I’ll finish showing you around the place.”

This place was interesting. Sam thought that whomever he had ended up with, they were very serious about what they did. He didn’t know what they wanted with him, but it seemed like they were willing to help—God knew he needed all the help he could get.

Well, at least until he found out more about their intentions and definitely more about himself.

~~~~~~~

Since the day Sam woke up, the Campbells as a whole were determined to help and bring him up to speed on hunting and his life. He met his other cousins, Mark and Johnny, soon after Christian and Gwen. They were quiet and tended to blend into the background, letting the others take over and work with Sam, who spent his days training and studying.

From the moment he woke up until lunch time (not counting the 30 minute breaks for eating breakfast and lunch), Mark and Johnny would help Christian train him. He was required to do a 10 mile run every single morning and then they would spend the rest of the morning doing various sparring drills. Sam was surprised to find that he was excellent at the drills and that he didn’t need much explaining to get things right on the first try. After lunch, Samuel and Gwen would both work on refreshing his memory in terms of doing research and Latin. Gwen was the designated researcher in the compound. She was an excellent researcher, but Sam found that he had quite the knack for it, too. Every other day, Christian was the one who helped him shoot guns as well as coach him in the art of deceiving the civilian population and the local authorities when they were working a case.

Even after a week or so of staying with the Campbells, Sam still felt more than overwhelmed with the onslaught of family relatives. He felt for sure that he had never known so many cousins and relatives in one place. He still didn’t know much about himself except for the dreams he had that involved a younger him and an older boy with blond hair and green eyes. _Dean._

His dreams were about a childhood—his own, Sam assumed. They involved normal childhood events such as being taught to ride a bike or getting a kiss on whichever body part of his got hurt.

Even without his memories, Sam knew that the memories were unusual not because they were of childhood that he couldn’t remember when he was awake, but because of the fact that many of the events involved not one of his parents rather they involved an older boy: his brother as Samuel had informed him—Dean.

This made the dreams much more precious to Sam. His conscious mind couldn’t remember who Dean was but apparently his unconscious mind and heart knew him.

In these dreams, Sam felt the safest he had ever felt and knew that he was loved.

There were two dreams that Sam could recall in vivid detail. Both involved him and Dean being alone together in a motel room. _The first was when Sam’s younger self was about four or five years old. He and a younger Dean were in a motel kitchen and Dean had just served the younger Sam the last bowl of cereal because Sam had asked him for more cereal and that was all they had left. The dream Sam realized that Dean was sad and had offered him the toy from the cereal box._

 _The second dream was when Sam’s dream self was a few years older. It was Christmas and Sam’s younger self had just discovered what his family did for a living—they hunted. Not just the usual animal hunting but rather they hunted supernatural beings. After learning this, Sam became disenchanted with his dad who had never been there for him—not like Dean. Therefore, Sam presented his sole present, an Egyptian amulet which he had originally planned to give his dad, to Dean instead. When Dean accepted it and immediately put it on, it made Sam feel really loved and accepted._

Waking up was always a disappointment since he would wake up to the gray walls of the compound and always felt a time of loss and longing as he got out of bed to start the day. Sam wished that he could remember all of the dreams except for the two really vivid dreams that he could recall but the dreams were like lovely hazy memories—he wished that he could grab on to them and keep them. All he could do try and find out more about his immediate family and in particular, Dean. Whenever he thought of Dean, Sam got a weird feeling that something that wasn’t right. He didn’t know what it was and somehow he knew that he had to keep it to himself. He didn’t know exactly why he had to but he knew that he couldn’t trust the Campbells despite their claim of being family.

Sam decided that the best thing he could do in regards to finding out about his family was to ask his grandfather about them. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Every time he would bring up the subject of his parents and Dean or his other siblings—since he had no idea if he had one or more—Samuel would clam up and change the subject. It was like he thought getting to know his family would cause Sam harm or something. Sam knew that Samuel and the cousins were aware of his family’s whereabouts and just didn’t want Sam to know. Sam assumed that they thought that once he knew his family’s whereabouts that he would just go to them and leave the Campbells behind. Sam knew that he wouldn’t be able to do that very easily--they were family as well. He couldn’t leave them. Not when they had helped him so much.

Trying to ask Gwen or any of the guys only produced a stiff, “You should ask Samuel about it.”

After a few days of getting nowhere by just asking, Sam decided that he would search for his family himself.

One day, after he had completed his daily Latin session, he decided to use his free time to do some research on his family. He headed towards what was termed the library in the compound. Lots of old books were stored here, waiting for someone to come and browse through them for information. Sam didn’t realize it but the trio of computers sitting on a narrow desk with chairs was the newest addition to the library. Samuel and the family found them to be extremely helpful in their search for supernatural information and sightings. It had taken them some time to learn how to use them, preferring at first to use the books they were used to.

So far, it was the younger Campbells, and Sam, who made extensive use of the machines. He couldn’t explain why he knew how to use the computers, but as it turned out, he knew a lot about them.

He walked confidently towards the desk, because he knew that all the Campbells were off doing something else, but he didn’t have much time. Someone could walk in and stop him, but he didn’t care. He needed to do this—just having vague dreams to go on wasn’t enough anymore.

He booted up one of the computers and waited impatiently as it started up. A minute later, he was clicking on the Internet and typing his name into the search engine. A page of suggested websites came up.

Sam clicked on one of the links and an article from the ‘Lawrence Gazette’ came on to the screen. It was dated November 3rd 1983. Since it was from more than twenty years ago, it really wasn’t relevant to Sam’s research but the names—Sam, John, and Dean—caught his eye. The article snippet described the sad event of the death of a woman named Mary Winchester in a house fire. She was survived by her husband, John and two little boys, Dean, 4 years old, and Sam, 6 months old.

Sam shook his head sadly—what a heartbreaking story. He tried searching for more about it, but besides the first site, there wasn’t much about the incident; it was like the earth had swallowed up the family. He tried his luck with the other links offered, and he came across more recent articles involving fugitives from a few years ago. They discussed Dean Winchester, who was wanted for murder and attempted murder in St. Louis, as well as murder and robbing a bank in Milwaukee.

Sam couldn’t be sure that this Dean was his brother, even though the description given of Dean in the articles did match what Samuel had told him and from what he had seen in his dreams. But how many Deans were out there that shared the same features and the name Winchester? It was a relatively uncommon surname, but surely there were other Dean Winchesters that weren’t related to him?

The last article he found was really interesting. It was a snippet about an explosion in a police station where two fugitives—again, Sam and Dean Winchester—were being kept. All the people inside the station, including the infamous Winchesters, were killed in the explosion. That meant that couldn’t have been his Dean, since he was killed alongside his brother, Sam.

 _How odd was it that there was another Sam Winchester who had a brother also named Dean?_ He thought to himself. Intrigued by the article, he quickly printed it out along with the other articles he found regarding the Winchesters. They finished without a moment to spare, because as the last document printed and Sam closed the web browser, the door to the library opened and Samuel walked in.

“Oh good, there you are! We were looking for you,” Samuel said as he walked up to join Sam at the computer. “What were you looking at?”

“Um, Gwen told me about this new website she found that she thought was a great source for info. I just thought I’d check it out for myself.” Sam looked down at the papers in his hand. “Yeah, so… I’m going to go and read through these now.” He turned and headed out the door.


	2. Interlude 1

Samuel watched Sam leave the room, frowning—something was definitely happening with Sam. He glanced at the computer Sam had used. He didn’t have the technical know-how that the youngsters had, but he knew enough, and was gambling on the fact that Sam didn’t delete his browser history. He clicked open the Internet browser and soon found the articles that Sam looked at before he came in.

This wasn’t good. His boss would not be pleased to hear about this. Samuel knew that he had to report this—there was no way around it. The boss wanted an update about anything to do with Sam and this incident was one of those times. Samuel took out his cell phone from his pocket. He stared at it for a few seconds then sighed and pressed the first speed dial.

After a couple of rings, a voice with a thick British accent answered, “Samuel, this better be good.”

“Yes, Sir. I just found out Sam’s looking into his family. He doesn’t know that I know, though—he told me that he was just doing research.”

On the other end, there was dead silence.

“Sir? You there?”

“I’m here and you’re an idiot. I told you that I wanted him to stay ignorant of his family, it was your main task, and what do you go and do? YOU LET HIM USE THE INTERNET! I told you that Sam was a master at research—you were supposed to keep him distracted!”

“I’m sorry, Boss. We’ve been keeping track of him and what he’s been doing, but he snuck this by us. If it helps any, I do know that he was only able to get just some basic information and that’s it.”

“You’d better hope that he doesn’t get more information, or I won’t keep my end of our bargain and get your precious Deanna and Mary back from the _In-Between Place_. All you had to do is keep Sam ignorant and keep finding me Alphas in the meantime. It was that simple. But maybe it is time to step up the plan for little Sammy—you know what to do. Don’t disappoint me again, Samuel.”

The line went dead.

Samuel hated that he had to go against his grandson like this, but he had no chance in the matter. Not if he wanted to see his wife and daughter again. Sam was Mary’s son, true—but Samuel didn’t _know_ him like he knew his daughter. He had to do whatever it took to get Mary back. Sam would have to understand.

And maybe after Samuel got his girls back, he could get Dean and Sam together as well and then they could bond as a real family for once. He might even forgive the fact that their father was that good-for-nothing John Winchester. Speaking of John, he had to hand it to the man; from the reports about the Winchesters and seeing Sam in training, he had to admit that John knew his stuff and trained his boys well. Sam definitely had a little Campbell in him, though.

Samuel couldn’t wait until the day when he finally had his family back where they belonged—with him. That was all he wanted.


	3. Part 2

The stack of articles was burning a hole through the bottom drawer of the dresser in Sam’s bedroom. Sam hadn’t had the chance to read them again after he had printed them out or to do more research about the Winchesters.

As soon as Sam had left Samuel and the library, Christian had stopped him, saying he wanted to go practice shooting. Sam had tried to get out of it, but unfortunately Christian wouldn’t take no for an answer, so Sam agreed, but went to go change first. Sam had only a few minutes to hide the papers and get changed before Christian knocked impatiently on his door.

Sam and Christian headed outside to the area where they kept the targets. Christian gave Sam his gun and Sam proceeded to fire off a round. He hoped that he could finish the target practice as fast as possible so he could get back to his room. They moved through the shooting quickly. As Sam was getting ready to fire his last round, Christian’s cell phone rang.  
Christian took it out and stared at the display, and then he glanced at Sam before he pressed the button and answered. He stepped back and walked away from where Sam was.

Sam lowered his weapon and tried to listen in—he knew that it had to do with him—and caught some of the one-sided conversation.

“Yes, I’ll bring him with me…Yes, Sir. I understand. I will, Sir. See you later.”

Christian hung up and headed back to Sam. He smiled and said, “That was your grandfather. He wanted you to practice your shooting a bit more and then he wants us to meet with him in his office. The man’s a slave driver, y’know?”

Christian gestured and Sam handed him the gun to be reloaded. As Christian was reloading the gun with new rounds, Sam asked, “Does this mean that I get to go on an actual hunt?”

“I don’t know what Samuel’s planning, but maybe.” He handed back the gun to Sam, who worked through the next round of bullets. Christian was silent beside him, keeping watch.

Sam couldn’t help but wonder why they had so many limitations that applied to him. Since he had waken up in the compound, he had been babysat during his training drills and he wasn’t left by himself that often. That is why the invitation to join on a hunt seemed to Sam to come out of the blue. It must have to do with the articles that he found earlier.

Sam had a feeling that he had come across something important when he discovered the articles about the Winchesters… something that Samuel and the others didn’t want him to know about. This only made him determined to find out more about the Winchesters—and himself.

Could he be the Sam Winchester mentioned in the articles? How could it be? That Sam Winchester was dead and here he was, alive, without his memories or any knowledge about himself. And he was almost certain that he was not a criminal. It didn’t make a lot of sense to him but it had to be logical—why else would Samuel and the cousins go on alert after he had come across this information?

A while later, Sam found himself staring at Samuel’s closed door. He had an uneasy feeling that once he opened the door, he wouldn’t be the same again. As much as he wanted to go on hunts and get to do something more productive then just training and being an assistant researcher, he knew that he was about to walk a dark path, one that he wasn’t too sure about. He was afraid to take the next step.

Despite that, Sam opened the door. As he stepped into the room, Samuel got up from his chair behind his desk and Gwen and Christian turned in their chairs to look at him. A chair stood empty between them.

“Ah, Sam. Welcome to your first hunt briefing. Take a seat.” Samuel gestured at the empty chair.

Feeling like he was being judged, Sam sat down in between Gwen and Christian.

Samuel continued. “Sam, because this is to be your first hunt since you’ve come to live with us, Christian will be in charge and your only job will be to back him up. Of course, you’ll be provided with suitable weaponry in order to defend yourself. We don’t know how you’ll react in an actual hunt situation so this is only precaution. It is not up for negotiation.”

Sam nodded. “Fine.”

“Good. Gwen, why don’t you fill Sam in on the information?”

Gwen sat up straighter in her chair. “Sure. So there’s been a report of a haunting two towns over. As always, it involves an abandoned house.” As she talked, she handed out papers that she printed out to the men. “A week ago, a bunch of teenagers playing a game of Truth or Dare decided that the house was a good place for a dare—each of them ended up in there for 15 minutes. Nothing unusual happened with the first three, but with the fourth, a Ms. Diane North, things went sour. “

“Lemme guess, she was caught by the ghost and died.” Christian’s tone was dry.

Gwen glared at him. “She was in the house for a few minutes, then the others say they heard her scream. They raced into the house and found her hanging from an old chandelier. Then they said they heard an echoing voice boom through the house, saying “ _This is what happens to foolish children._ ” They ran out and called the police, who don’t believe it, and ruled the death a suicide. I followed up and figured it out: a Mr. Victor Adams who died in 1955 haunts the house. ”

“What else did you find?” Sam said. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

Shooting a glance to Samuel, Gwen said, “Well, according to the rumors, they only found the suicide note he left behind. They never found the body. Legend has it that he hid himself in his bomb shelter, because it was during the Cold War and he was one of the more paranoid people. They never did find the bomb shelter, but it has to be on his property.”

Samuel nodded. “Well done, Gwen. Now boys, it is up to you to find the body, salt it, and burn it. Sam, you’re to listen to whatever Christian tells you. Do you have anything else that you’d like to ask?”

Sam shook his head, “I don’t think so.”

“Then should get a move on—maybe head out there now. Gwen will show you where we keep the spare stuff for hunting. Christian, please stay for a minute.”

With that, Sam and Gwen were dismissed. As they left the office, Gwen smiled at Sam, “Cheer up, hun. Technically, it is your first hunt but you’ll do okay, you’ll see. Come with me and we’ll get you all sorted out.”

Once he was equipped and the Jeep was leaving the compound, Sam had the feeling that everything was going to change for him. For better or for worse, things wouldn’t be the same.

~~~~~~~

 

Sam and Christian arrived in town just after midnight. Looking around, they found a fairly run-down motel that lay on the outskirts of town. Driving up to the office, Christian stopped the car and said, “Wait with the stuff while I get us the room.”

“Okay.” It felt natural to Sam to be the one to stay in the car.

Christian opened the car door and went up to the motel office. Ten minutes later, he came out waving the key card to the room. “Uh, who would have thought that this place would do the key card thing? This ain’t the Ritz.”

“Yeah, but maybe it’s the Ritz for roaches.”

“God, I hope not.” Christian drove the car to their room’s parking space. “Ah, here’s room 6, ground floor.” He opened the door to their room while Sam went and brought in their stuff.

The room had two queens, a small kitchen area and a bathroom. The interior was not so outrageous in keeping with the kitschy theme common with small town motels. Although the color theme could be considered to be on the kitschy side of things—the walls were covered by a psychedelic wall paper with various colorful patterns—which gave off the impression that the room was tilting from side to side—while all the furniture was in a rundown mud beige color. Despite the nauseating décor, the room was surprisingly well kept considering the exterior of the motel.

Christian claimed the bed furthest from the door. “You don’t mind that I have this bed, do you?” He glanced at Sam who still stood at the front door with their stuff.

“No, I don’t mind.” Sam dumped his stuff on his bed before dropping off Christian’s stuff. Sam immediately got out the laptop that Gwen had given him to use and sat down at the small kitchen table. Christian, on the other hand, went through his sleep routine and got ready for bed.

As he got under the covers, Christian said, “Tell me what you find in the morning, Sam. ‘Night.”

As Christian slept, Sam did research for the next two hours when he looked at the clock on the computer screen and saw that it was close to 3 AM in the morning. He knew that Christian was an early raiser so he decided to go it a night and go off to sleep.

~~~~~~~

Early the next morning, Sam was rudely awakened by Christian’s cell phone alarm beeping in his ear. He had dreamed an excellent dream in which a younger him was being shown by Dean how to skip rocks across a pond. It was a lovely dream filled with childish laughs and fun as the two of them threw rocks into the water.

Twenty minutes after Christian had woken Sam up, they head out to get breakfast and Sam filled Christian in about what his research had produced. After breakfast, they headed to the town’s archive, where all the town’s residents had to submit any documents regarding their property. Once there, it was quick work to find Adams’ papers, which included the bomb shelter blue prints. Then they went to meet Diane North’s friends.

From the talk with the teens, Christian and Sam learned that they ignored the warning signs that the house really was haunted. The house lights, supposedly old and not working, flickered crazily on and off from the moment the first teen went into the house. It also had been awfully cold that night. So the kids didn’t pay attention to the cold interior of the house until they realized that the temperature in the house had gotten icy when they went in to find Diane.

After their chat with the teenagers, Christian and Sam detoured back to the motel and then they went to the house to scope it out. The house was definitely old—it was a two-story house and its window shutters were hanging on by a thread; the paint was chipped; it was clear that no one had taken care of the exterior in years. It was the same inside the house, with all the wallpaper faded and stripping.

They cleared the house, and then Christian stopped in the middle of what used to be the living room and shrugged off his duffle. “It sure looks like Old Man Adams has been keeping house, doesn’t it?”

Sam coughed as dust bellowed up from around him. “It would seem so. Do you want me to take the upstairs?” He pointed to the small staircase leading up to the second floor.

“Nah, I’ll take the upstairs. You finish sweeping this floor and then start downstairs, I’ll join you there.” With that, Christian went up the stairs.

Seconds later he screamed, and before Sam could go to him, he came crashing through the ceiling. On his heels came the ghost of Old Man Adams. The ghost flicked in and out as he focused on Christian who was lying on the floor.

“WHAT DID I TELL YOU PEOPLE?! THIS IS MY HOUSE!” The ghost of Victor Adams yelled. He didn’t seem to notice Sam standing there—apparently he was bent on taking his revenge out on Christian. All of a sudden Christian’s skin started to turn a sickly blue color.

“Sssam…” Christian managed to choke out, his life force being sucked out of him.

Realizing that he had to do something to save Christian’s life, Sam aimed his shotgun at the ghost, hitting it dead-on with rock salt. Old Man Adams vanished and Sam immediately went to help Christian, who was less than happy.

“What were you doing, Sam, waiting for him to finish me off?! What were you thinking?”

“I…I don’t know.” Sam stuttered, “I guess I got caught by surprise. It won’t happen again, I swear.” He reached down to help Christian up.

“I can get up just fine, no thanks to you.” Christian slowly got up and glanced at the shotguns lying on the floor where they were dropped in all the confusion. “Sam, pack everything up and meet me at the car.”

Not understanding why Christian was so angry at him, Sam quickly packed up their remaining gear. He knew he’d screwed up somehow; his old self—according to all the stories the Campbells told him—would’ve done better than that, especially if he really did belong in the Campbell family. He had to be a hunter, didn’t he? All this time, everyone was being so supportive about him and his memory, like just a few training lessons and “refresher” courses would remind him of his purpose, of being a Hunter with a capital H as well as being a Campbell.

Sam headed outside towards to car and Christian. As he reached the car, he noticed that Christian was just getting off the phone. Whoever it was, they had made him very happy since he was smiling and nodding to himself.

As soon as Christian saw Sam, the smile disappeared. “SAM! Get a move on! We don’t have all day!” Christian got into the car as Sam put everything in the trunk; he supposed that it was his punishment for not helping Christian with Adams.

As Sam got into the car, Christian said, “I just spoke to Samuel and told him about the incident earlier. He wants us back at the compound.”

“But what about Adams?” Sam asked, surprised that Samuel wasn’t concerned with them finishing the job.

“Mark and Johnny are on their way here—they’ll deal with Adams. It was supposed to be an easy “salt and burn” but you blew it.” Christian turned his gaze back to the road as he turned the radio’s volume on to blaring as "Rocking Chair" by Steve Carlson played on the radio.

Sam turned his gaze to the scenery zooming passed his window. There was no doubt that he had failed but he couldn’t believe that it was that bad that Samuel felt that he needed to call them back and send in other hunters to do his job for him.


	4. Interlude 2

Elsewhere, a man wearing a beige trench coat walked confidently down a white pathway.

White was all around him, except for the occasional glowing orb which floated gently throughout the space. As one neared the man, pictures became visible and revealed themselves to him. One picture contained a young woman and her baby cuddling together; another showed the same woman, just much older, sitting with a man and watching a young man walk up to a stage and get his degree; yet another showed her as a frail old woman lying on her death bed.

The man ignored the glowing globe as well as the others floating past him as he neared his destination: a throne, facing the vast white void. Next to the throne floated another glowing orb, but this one was twice the size of the others.

As the man reached the throne, he bowed down to its occupant. “My Lord.”

“Castiel. What brings you here?”

“I’ve come to ask about Sam Winchester’s soul,” Castiel replied.

“Ah, I should have known that you would ask after young Samuel’s soul,” the voice replied as a hand gently stroked the orb floating next to the throne.

Castiel hesitated. He knew that a lot rode on what he said next—whether he got get Sam’s soul was the least of his worries if he upset this individual. “My Lord, I ask you put Sam’s body and soul back together again.”

A heavy sigh came from the direction of the throne. “I know what you’ve done with the Winchesters, in saving their world and ours from complete destruction. I respect you for that. But you know as well as I do that when a soul is reaped there is very little to be done to reverse it. Samuel had his soul removed for a reason.”

“Yes, My Lord. I am aware of the circumstances, but I think that enough time has passed and Sam needs his soul, it belongs to him.” After that, Castiel waited in anxious silence. It was the first time that he had dared to speak up, but he felt that he had to do something, Sam had sacrificed everything to save them and he deserved more than what he had been given. It was true that at first, Sam would not be able to function with his soul--that was the extent to which Lucifer and Michael had tortured him, but he still felt the reunion was necessary.

Finally, the voice spoke. “Very well, Castiel—you’ve presented your case. Once he is back on earth, Samuel will be able to get his soul back only when he is reunited with his brother and wishes to be whole again. Unfortunately though, Samuel’s physical body is not where it should be—where we had placed it after getting it out of the cage and separating it from the soul. It will be your first task to find where it is.”

Castiel frowned slightly. This was unprecedented—to not know where the physical body resided was unheard of. Of course, in Sam’s case, everything was pretty much unheard of. He was the first man to fall into Hell and the Cage without offering up his soul first. Castiel didn’t realize that waiting so long to argue Sam’s case would lead to this. Who could have taken Sam’s body from the _In-Between Place_? It was the one sacred place where human souls should be safe from both angels and demons alike.

“My Lord, do you know who took him?” Castiel asked.

“Yes, I do. The appointed one told me that the new Lord of Hell had come to see him at the time. He didn’t think much of it since demons always are lurking around the _In-Between place_ trying to see if they can steal souls from there. As it was, the appointed one and the new Lord used to be on relatively good terms so he didn’t think much of it.”

Castiel asked, “Hell has a new Lord?” Then it occurred to him. Who had wanted to take over Hell and had worked his way up to it--even through working with the enemy? “Crowley.”

“Yes, Crowley. It seems that he played his hand well. But what he would want with Samuel’s body I do not know. It seems that he might not be aware that Samuel’s soul wasn’t kept with the body after we removed Samuel from the Cage. It would be up to you to find where Samuel is, get him away from Crowley and then get him to want to accept his soul back.”

 _No small task by any means, but I suppose I owe Sam that much,_ Castiel thought to himself. He bowed down to the throne with respect, “Yes, My Lord. Thank you.”

Castiel turned around and headed out the chamber of souls. He had a lot to do.


	5. Part 3

Driving back to the compound was the longest drive Sam had ever been in his life that he knew of. After the first few hours of having the radio on blaring which made Sam’s ears throb after a while, Christian switched off the radio and drove in silence without saying a word to Sam. It wouldn’t have made a difference to Sam because he didn’t have much to say to Christian either but for some reason he hated the deafening silence. Sam found himself wishing that there was still blaring music coming out of the car radio that would shatter the silence. He even knew what kind of music would fit this situation—some classic rock.

Sam didn’t think that he knew any classic rock song but for some unexplainable reason, he just had a feeling that it was the type of music that was usually played whenever he and Dean had a fight in the car and they needed another barrier between them.

Sam spent the entire journey wondering about Dean and what would Samuel say when they finally got back. He knew that the Adams hunt wasn’t just a normal hunt for him. It was the first one that he had gone on since Samuel and the cousins had taken him in and he had screwed up.

Samuel was waiting for them at the door of the compound as they drove up. As he shut off the engine, Christian glanced at Sam, “It won’t be so bad, you’ll see.”

Sam could tell that Christian was trying to make him feel better but he felt like he was a dead man walking. All he had to face was his grandfather. Who was family. Who loved him.

Oddly enough, a weird feeling came over Sam as he started getting out of the car. This walk of shame was nothing new to him. Even though he never messed up before as far as he knew. Taking the steps one at a time towards Samuel was familiar as was the position of Sam’s head looking down at his feet in shame.

Samuel cleared his throat as Sam and Christian walked up to the door.

“Christian, go and pack your stuff away and come to my office in thirty minutes. Sam and I have something to discuss.” Samuel said turning to walk towards his office.

Sighing, Christian waited a beat before turning to Sam. “You’ll be okay. I am…I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for shouting at you the way that I did back there. It was uncalled for. You should hurry up. Samuel doesn’t like to be kept waiting too long.”

Christian adjusted the duffle on his shoulder and walked away.

For a minute, Sam stood there gazing at Christian’s back, taken back by his admission. It was surprising coming from the usually surly hunter who, at times, gave Sam the feeling that he resented him. It could possibly stem from the fact that Sam was Samuel’s grandson, his own flesh and blood while Christian was a more distant relative.

Shaking his head in wonder, Sam took a deep breathe and started the seemingly long walk towards Samuel’s office.

~~~~~~~

Sam knocked on the door and waited for Samuel’s okay to enter. He didn’t know why he was acting so formal but he felt like he was a condemned man waiting for the inevitable verdict that would seal his fate.

At Samuel’s crisp ‘Enter’, Sam opened the door and stepped into the room. Samuel sat behind his desk, looking very serious.

“Sam, why don’t you sit down?” Samuel nodded towards the two chairs that were on Sam’s side of the desk.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Sam said, “That I was reckless and I put Christian in harm’s way. I know that I should have been more careful and looked out for him.”

“Sam, I know that you wanted to be out in the field so to speak, to be a hunter. That is why I gave you the chance to go hunting with Christian…” He trailed off.

Sam went pale and somehow managed to shrink into himself, becoming impossibly shorter and younger all of a sudden. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

Seeing how affected Sam was by all this almost made Samuel want to get up and give the boy a hug and let him know that it was okay. But then he remembered what his boss had told him. It was all about training Sam and nothing else mattered.

Sam Winchester could not be allowed to return to his softhearted pre-cage self.

With that in mind, Samuel steeled himself and said, “There can’t be any ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘I didn’t mean to…” out there when you’re in the heat of the hunt. You almost cost Christian his life this time and I can’t allow it to happen again. Sam, the fact is that you’re not ready. You need to toughen up some more. I’m going to take you off the research detail with Gwen and give you more time to practice your hunting skills with Christian, Johnny, and Mark. We’ll give you a couple of weeks and then I’ll see about letting you go on another hunt.”

As Samuel finished talking, he noticed that Sam had gone silent. He had been told that this was Sam’s MO—that when he thought that he had screwed up, he internalized everything and vowed to do better. Things were going according to plan.

Samuel got up and walked over to the cabinet standing at the one side of the room, picked up a glass, and poured some whiskey into it. He glanced over his shoulder at Sam still sitting quietly, lost in his own world. Samuel reached into a pocket and took out a small plastic bag filled of a thin white powder. Scoping up some of the powder with a little spoon, he stirred it into the whiskey, until only the gold of the whiskey was visible.

Putting everything away, Samuel picked up the glass and walked over to Sam. “Here, I think that you need some of this.” Samuel said, handing over the glass to Sam.

Sad puppy eyes gazed up at him. “Thanks.” Sam said with a little shrug. He didn’t really feel like drinking the whiskey. His head ached, probably a migraine coming on and all he wanted was to be alone, but he knew that he couldn’t just leave without Samuel dismissing him.

“Um, just take a sip, Sam. It’ll make you feel better.”

Sam lifted his head and stared at Samuel in surprise. In a space of a few seconds, he had forgotten where he was and who he was with. He blushed a dull red. Maybe Samuel was right—he was too distracted for actual hunting at the moment. “Sorry.” He whispered, still swirling the whiskey around in the glass.

Gesturing towards the glass, Samuel replied, “Just take one sip. It will calm your nerves and make you feel better. Tell you what, just take one tiny sip and I’ll let you go to your room. You can have the rest of the day off if you want.”

Sam nodded, “Okay.” He lifted the glass to his lips, intending to just have the one tiny sip but as he drank, he found that he couldn’t stop at just one tiny sip. It was so delicious that he just drank all the whiskey there was in the glass. “That was great.” Sam said as he held up the empty glass. “What was it?”

“Oh just some Jack Daniels.” Samuel said dismissively. “You should go to your room for a while and just rest. I’ll send someone to call you for supper.”

Sam nodded, relieved that he finally got dismissed. He got up and left the office.

After Sam left, Samuel picked up the phone and dialed. As the person on the other end answered, all Samuel said was “Phase two is complete.”

 

~~~~~~~

In his room, Sam tiredly sat down and removed his shoes. He only managed to unhook his belt before he felt his eyelids slowly begin to close. It was all he could do before he fell into a deep sleep.

He dreamed. Not of the dreams of Dean that made him feel safe and loved. Rather he dreamed of a Dean calling him a monster and not worthy of being called his brother.

In particular, Sam dreamed again of being in a motel room alone with Dean twice—when he was around five years old and when he was a few years older. The dreams started off the same but Dean’s reactions were vastly different to how he reacted to Sam in the past dreams.

 _When five year old Sam asked for more cereal, Dean shook his head, ‘No’ and his eyes became black. He told the younger Sam that he was a monster and worthless. That Dean was tired of taking care of an ungrateful Sam. This demon Dean took the cereal for himself and ignored Sam altogether._

 _The second dream was ten times worse because the dream Sam was completely taken off guard by demon Dean throwing the amulet away in a wastebasket. He then went on to say that he doesn’t consider Sam to be his brother and that he was solely a monster and not worth being allowed the honor of being a hunter._

Unlike the other dreams Sam had dreamed of Dean—where he felt safe and cared for—these dreams made him feel unwanted and hated.

Sam woke up the next morning, feeling utterly drained. He couldn’t believe that he had gotten off so lightly following his actions on the Adams hunt with Christian. He was a total and utter screw up who deserved a harsher punishment than he had been given in his opinion.

As he was getting dressed for the day, Sam came across the stack of articles he had found and printed weeks ago. He had been kept so busy with everything that he had forgotten about his quest to find out more about the Winchesters.

What would they say if they knew what a screw-up Sam was as a hunter? Would they accept him?

 _No. They wouldn’t._ a voice at the back of Sam’s mind whispered. _Why would they? You’re such a screw up that you couldn’t even do the job of backing up a real hunter._

Sam supposed that the voice was right. He was a screw up who was not fit as of yet to be a hunter. He vowed that he would train harder and was willing to accept any new regiment that Samuel deemed necessary to get him into shape. He needed to be the ultimate hunter so he would make Samuel proud. More importantly than that—he wanted to be the hunter that would make his absentee family proud of him.

Sam imagined Dean and his parents glowing with pride at his hunting achievements. Just imagining it made Sam feel ten times better with himself. Despite the uplifting thoughts, some part of Sam was a little uneasy about this new purpose. Determined that he would succeed at becoming a great hunter, or at least begin his training in becoming one in the right way, Sam locked that part of him tight so that it wouldn’t bother him again.

He had work to do.

An hour later, Sam went to meet the three younger Campbells for his first training session of the day. He knew that they would throw all they had at him in the hopes of tripping him up and highlighting his failures. All three of the Campbells were waiting for him in a half circle. Sam nodded a greeting to them and came to a stop in front of Christian expecting him to give an explanation or something to indicate what they were going to do in the session.

Without warning, two of them shifted into fight stances and started to attack Sam from different directions. Johnny threw a series of punches aimed at Sam’s head. Sam brought up his left arm to deflect the punches. As he did that, Mark twisted his body and aimed a kick towards Sam’s mid-section. Immediately, Sam brought his right arm up to deflect the kick.

Sam was busy deflecting the kicks and punches that he didn’t notice that Christian hadn’t joined in the fight. All three men fought for a couple of minutes with Sam expertly deflecting hits and even getting in some hits of his own.

In the midst of fighting Johnny and Mark, Sam suddenly sensed that someone was behind him and he immediately went on the offense. He started to attack the two Campbells in front of him without stopping. He wasn’t going to give them a chance to attack him so that he would be forced to be on the defensive.

He managed to make both Johnny and Mark stand back when Sam felt the air around him shift as Christian shifted to kick Sam at the back of his leg. Sam immediately moved his body more to the side so that Christian’s kick landed on the side of Sam’s leg. Christian stumbled as his kick didn’t hit its intended target.Sam twisted around and dropped into a fighting stance. His eyes were focused on Christian. Sam was tensed and ready for anything that Christian would throw at him.

Just then, Christian straightened up and smiled, “Great work, Sammy. I knew that we would get to see the hunter in you before long.”

Christian turned and went to the corner of the room where there was a table with water bottles on it. Three of the bottles had a blue seal on them while the fourth had no seal. Christian grabbed two of the bottles—one with a blue seal and the other without any—and handed the non-sealed bottle to Sam.

“Here, drink. We need to discuss how we are going to improve your technique further but that’s a good start.”

Sam drank the water thirstily finishing the entire bottle. He grinned at Christian, “Thanks. I needed that.”

Christian smiled, “Right. Now, you and I will do some work with the knives while Johnny and Mark catch their breath.”

He turned to his cousins who were standing next to the table still drinking their water. They saluted Sam and Christian with the bottles before they headed out the door.

Christian went to the opposite wall where an array of knives was lined up on the wall. He choose two of the biggest ones and gave one to Sam.

Sam took it and turned it over in his hands admiring the sharp blade. Suddenly he heard the sharp whipping sound of a blade come at him. He quickly brought up his own blade to block.

Sam was worked up. He vowed that it was the last time that Christian would be able to catch him unguarded. With that thought, Sam went on the offensive—moving more gracefully forward with each sweep of his blade-wielding arm forcing Christian on the defensive. Soon Sam had Christian backed into a corner of the room and he was able to disarm him.

Breathing hard, Christian bent over in an effort to change his breath and looked over at Sam. Unlike Christian, Sam wasn’t so out of breath and just stood waiting for a reaction from him.

“You’re doing great, Sam!” Christian praised him, “I don’t know when you had the change of heart but keep it up.”

Christian then sent Sam to get changed and have lunch. After lunch, Christian put Sam through his paces again and with every training session, Sam became more robotic in his discipline.

That night, Sam went to bed exhausted from the training he had done that day. He hoped that he was too tired to dream but he was wrong.

Sam dreamed of Demon Dean again. _Demon Dean laughed at Sam who was lying in a corner, “You’re so pathetic. Christian was going easy on you today! You aren’t hunter material. I know what your brother would say if he saw you now—he would say that you’re a miserable failure. You will need to toughen up if you want to be called a Winchester because as you are now—you’re no good! Not as a person and definitely not as a brother!”_

The next day, during training, Sam went half-mad when the three Campbells attacked him during training. He managed to get to the wall of knives and grabbing a knife, he went on the offensive attacking all three Campbells at once. Samuel had to come and command Sam to stop three times before Sam acknowledged the command and stopped still clutching the knife with a murderous look in his eye.

Samuel and the others stared at him astonished as Sam finally left the room. They had no idea that Sam’s transformation into a super hunter would be so fast.


	6. Interlude 3

Castiel, in his invisible state, stood in Campbell compound. He was spying on Sam and the Campbells, Not that he didn’t trust the One, but the idea that Crowley had gotten a hold of Sam was shocking and he just had to see it for himself. Now he saw that the One was right.

He watched Sam being led in a round of sparring with one of the Campbells. Sam seemed to have the physicality down, but his movements were military-precise in their accuracy and not as graceful as before. A sure sign that Sam didn’t have his memories or his soul since the way he held himself and executed the moves which were as unSam-like as they could be.

Castiel stayed watching the activity a while longer until Sam and the Campbells loaded up their stuff and headed out. Catching a glimpse of Sam’s face, Castiel shivered. That wasn’t the Sam he had known. There was no way that Castiel could just approach Sam like this. Who knew what the Campbells or what Crowley had told him about angels and Castiel in particular? No, he’d better go and get help before approaching Sam.

Looking at Sam one more time, Castiel phased out to his next destination.

~~~~~~

Castiel phased in and found he was standing quite close to a bush. Brushing stray leaves off his coat, he walked out to the street. There were manicured lawns around him with houses standing proudly near them. Castiel wasn’t interested in the houses… save for one. He glanced up at the house as if willing its occupants to come out. And by the power of his mind, the door of the garage opened and out stepped a man of thirty with sandy short hair.

“Dean!” Castiel called.

Dean looked over at him and frowned. He glanced back at the house and hurried over to Castiel. “Cas! What the HELL are you doing here?!” he said furiously. “I told you that I didn’t want anything to do with anything supernatural, much less with angels. Not after…”

Dean trailed off. Nonetheless, Castiel knew to what Dean was referring to. The one thing that made Dean turn his back on hunting and the supernatural—Sam’s supposed death when he jumped into the cage with Lucifer.

“Dean, I really need your help! It’s important!” Castiel pleaded.

“No, Cas! I told you I was going to respect Sam’s wishes and I was going to leave hunting behind. I was surprised Lisa cared enough to take me in after everything that had happened. I can’t just leave her and Ben. My answer is NO! You can deal with any crisis you’ve got on your own. I’m DONE!” Dean walked back to the garage and closed the garage door without waiting for a response.

Castiel remained standing there, stunned. He whispered, “Dean, it is Sam. He needs your help.”

Castiel knew that Dean would do anything for Sam but just maybe it was too soon to ask him for the help Sam desperately needed. He realized now that it wasn’t just Sam who needed help in getting back his soul and life. Dean also needed help—he was almost adrift as Sam was. But Dean was with Lisa and Ben and he was estranged from the world of the supernatural and hunting. So while Dean was relatively safe, it was Sam who was in immediate danger.

There was one other person who would help Sam if Castiel asked. _Bobby._ It wouldn’t be an easy task to be sure, but just maybe Bobby would hear Castiel out. Gazing sadly back at the house—and Dean—Castiel phased out again.


	7. Part 4

After a few weeks of intense training where Sam was given a daily dose of Crowley’s powder and Samuel was satisfied that they had rid Sam of the lingering aspects of Sam’s personality and transformed him into a new super hunter of sorts.

To finish off the transformation, Samuel and Crowley decided that they would rename Sam by giving him the name of Maxwell Johnson. A new name for a new and improved hunter—this was done in part to rid Sam of his birth name and to hide his identity so that other hunters wouldn’t know who Sam really was.

The first order of business for the new hunter, Maxwell Johnson aka Sam was to go on a hunt involving a pack of werewolves who were hunting together—their prey of choice were college kids. The werewolves would spend a few months in a college before moving on to the next. Gwen had figured out the pattern and Samuel had decided that it was high time to test the new hunter’s abilities and how he would do during a solo hunt.

A few days later around the time of the month for a full moon, Sam arrived at the latest college where the most recent werewolf attacks happened. Immediately, he headed to the local police station where he presented himself as being an agent of the FBI charged with investigating the case.

The police chief, Lt. Dallas, came out from his office to present himself to Sam. Lt. Dallas asked to see identification before he let Sam into his office.

“What can I do for you, Agent?” Lt. Dallas asked as he sat down behind his desk.

“I would like to see all the cases involving the college campus attacks.” Sam said.

“Why would the FBI be so interested in our college campus? They are missing person cases. I’ll admit that the one attack with Alice Reed was more likely a madman who thought that he would get off by attacking her. It’s nothing.”

“Well, Lt. Dallas, we take the safety of our citizens very seriously. I need to see the full case files.” Sam replied seriously.

Intimidated by the presence of an FBI agent, Lt. Dallas sent for the full case files immediately.   
Just as his desk clerk brought in the files, Lt. Dallas said to Sam, “Look through them and we’ll make copies of everything that you want.”

Sam just stared at him and replied, “No, that won’t be necessary. I’ll just take the files and be on my way.”

He picked up the files and left the police station leaving behind a baffled chief of police.

After a night of studying the material of the case and the location of the attacks, Sam decided to go and stalk out the location knowing that tomorrow night there was going to be a full moon.

The next day, Sam prepped his gear for the hunt while going around and gathering some more intel about the cases by interviewing Alice Reed.

When Alice Reed opened the door, Sam just flashed his badge at her and asked if she was willing to answer some questions about her attacker. Without waiting for her answer, Sam pushed her to the side and let himself in.

Taken back by his abrupt behavior, Alice followed him inside.

As soon as he was inside, Sam turned to Alice, “What happened the night that you were attacked Alice?”

Alice glared at him, “Why do you want to know about it? I didn’t think that it would interest the FBI?”

Sam nodded, “You’re right. Usually it wouldn’t interest the FBI but there have been developments in the case that do concern us.”

“Like what?”

“I’m not at liberty to give more details. I do need your account of the attack though.”

Alice hesitated, “Do you think that it would lead to an arrest if I do tell you about it.”

Sam replied, “Yes.”

Alice nodded and took a deep breath. “I was at a friend’s, studying for an exam. After a few hours of studying, I left. I had to cross over the campus lawn in order to get to my dorm room. I made sure that I walked where there were people and street lights but as I neared my dorm room, two men came up to me. I tried to avoid them by walking faster but they were insistent and one of them grabbed me. As he grabbed me, I saw that his face had changed shape—it had become more like a monster’s face and he had the teeth to match,” She stopped talking and shuddered at the memory. “Anyway, that is all I remember because the next thing I know I find myself lying on the ground with my shirt torn and being a little bloody. I guess that someone came and they freaked and just run away leaving me there.”

“And what else?” Sam asked.

“What what else? I’ve told you everything I know.” She replied a little taken back.

“That couldn’t have the end of it. You just recounted what you told the local police. I want to know what happened. All of it,” Sam said in a stern tone.

Alice sighed and said quietly, “You’re right. That isn’t everything. They took me with them to a place where they and a group of other men did things to me that I would rather forget. Please don’t make me tell you about them.”

She started sobbing holding her face in her hands. Sam sighed; this was all a huge nuisance to him—talking to the victims. They didn’t know anything other than the terror of their experience.

“Okay, fine. You don’t have to give me the details. Just give me the location, can you do that?” He asked, watching her warily.

Alice nodded and lifted her head to stare Sam straight in the eye. “They took me to a small circular courtyard. It’s by the angel statures on the edge of the college lawn. That’s where they did it.”

Nodding in satisfaction, Sam stood up prompting Alice to stand as well. “You’re going?” She asked astonished.

Sam nodded, “Yes,” taking a step to the door; he stopped as if he had just remembered to do something, turned and said, “Thank you. I promise that we’ll stop these guys.”

With that he turned and left.

 

~~~~~~~

That night was the full moon. Sam waited in the shadows of the circular courtyard that Alice had mentioned. He knew that the two men who had attacked Alice and their posse would be coming here any moment now bring with them their newest victim.

Thirty minutes later, Sam heard voices coming his way. He could tell that there were about five men with one woman. He couldn’t see what was going on because of the plants and trees surrounding him in addition to the darkness.

Suddenly, the woman’s scream pierced the quiet night.

“LET ME GO!” She yelled at the top of her voice, “SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME!”

Straighten up from semi-crouch he had been in, Sam took a step forward into the bush. He didn’t move forward, not just yet. He waited.

“Shhh, little girl. You can scream all you want; there is no one here to hear you. Am I right, Jay?” Sam heard one of the werewolves say.

“Right, Hay. What are you waiting for, man? I want a piece of her too.” A second male voice replied.

The woman let out a noisy sob, “Please, don’t. Please! I’m begging you.”

Sam guessed that these two were the same men who attacked Alice Reed. He couldn’t be 100 percent certain since they were still in human form but it was a likely possibility. Where the other three men were was anyone’s guess. Sam didn’t think that they had gone far, just far enough to allow the two idiots near him to have their time with the girl. He knew that he would have to act quickly to get the girl out of the way and to kill the two werewolves before their brothers caught on to what was happening.

Sam started to ease out of the shadows, making sure that he stepped lightly so that his steps wouldn’t be heard. As he moved, he also aimed his gun at the men. The gun was loaded with silver rounds which would kill the werewolves outright. In his other hand, he carried a silver machete. He knew that it wouldn’t do much against the werewolves but it was an extra weapon.

As he neared the men, the girl between them was still fighting to get free. She caught Sam’s eye, begging for his help.

Sam nodded at her and put a finger to his mouth, signaling that she keep quiet about his presence.

The two werewolves were too occupied with the girl to notice Sam’s presence until he was right behind them.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Sam causally asked the two men.

Without turning around to look at Sam, one of the men replied, “None of your business, Mister.”

Sam smirked and put the gun next to the man’s temple. “I’m making it my business and by the way, these are not just your run of the mill bullets. They’re silver ones.”

Both men stopped what they were doing to the girl and slowly turned to face Sam.

“So you’re Mister Big Hunter, huh?” The taller of the two smirked at Sam.

Sam didn’t say a word just made a ‘come hither’ gesture with his hand.

The two werewolves grinned at each other. The taller one glanced over his shoulder and said to the girl trembling on the ground, “This won’t take a second, love. Just sit tight and wait…”A silver bullet came whistling passed his ear coming to a stop in the tree trunk behind him. “Why you!” He yelled and spun around to attack Sam as a second bullet came flying passed. His face savagely morphed into that of a werewolf. His companion, on the other hand, stood there stunned.

“Jay, don’t just stand there!” the taller werewolf, Hay, snarled. At Hay’s command, Jay finally snapped out of his daze as he too morphed his face to match the monster that was inside of him.

As Hay advanced on Sam, Jay tilted his head back and let out a howl.

 _Shit_ was Sam’s only thought before Hay tackled him. As Sam felt Hay’s momentum throwing him to the ground, he managed to twist his body so that as he hit the ground he rolled and shifted their positions. He managed to get on top of Hay but Hay was fighting furiously.

It was hard for Sam to keep him under control because Jay finally came along trying to help Hay by kicking Sam. Eventually Sam managed somehow to keep Hay in his grasp whilst protecting himself from Jay’s attacks. He knew that it wouldn’t be long before the others got here and then it would be five to one odds which weren’t in Sam’s favor.

With a roar of frustration, Sam throw a punch to Hay’s face knocking him out. At the sight of his unconscious comrade in arms, Jay left go of Sam in shock. Taking advantage of the situation, Sam immediately found his gun which had fallen to the ground following Hay’s tackle. He shot Hay in the heart killing him instantly.

Apparently, Hay was the leader because without his commands, Jay was as docile as a lamb but Sam took no chances and shot him as well. Knowing that the other werewolves would be here any second now, Sam checked the ammo for his gun. He had enough if he was to be ambushed by angry werewolves wanting revenge for the death of their brothers. He picked up his silver machete off the ground.

With that done, Sam flicked his gazes towards the thick trees lining the courtyard. There trying to stay as quiet as possible was the young woman Jay and Hay attacked.

Sam bent down next to her and said, “They’re dead. You’re okay.”

The young woman let out a sob and threw herself at Sam, hugging and kissing him. This was first time since he had been rescued by the Campbells that Sam had indulged in this sort of thing. He found out that he quite liked it as evident by his arousal.

He threw himself into the kiss and only the young woman’s frighten sob shook him out of it. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that the three remaining werewolves had finally arrived to help their brothers and were surrounding Sam and the girl in a semi-circle and closing in on them slowly.

Sam immediately grabbed his silver machete and pushed himself off the ground and stood up. He had a feeling that the werewolves were waiting for him to start the battle as it was. He supposed that it would give them the satisfaction of beating a hunter. But then he was no ordinary hunter.

He lazily made a ‘come hither’ motion with his index finger. The werewolves looked at each other in silent communication and attacked Sam as one unit. But Sam was ready for them and he swung the machete in an arch, cutting all three of the werewolves in one go. The silver of the machete caused all three to hiss in pain and to step away from Sam. That was all it took for Sam to draw his gun with his other hand and to fire off a shot at the werewolf on his left. Unfortunately, it was not a fatal shot but the werewolf fell to the ground. The other two howled in anger and attacked Sam again.

Sam didn’t allow them to drop him to the ground like before. He got on the offense, managing to keep the two back by advancing on them one handed with his machete.

It was a bloody battle but Sam was triumphant in the end as he overpowered the remaining two werewolves leaving them lying on the ground bloody. Not taking his chances, Sam immediately shot all three wolves in the heart with his gun.

Sam stood staring down at the three bodies lying at his feet. He was bloody and slightly out of breath but he had done it. He had killed the gang of werewolves who had been terrorizing young college women.

At the sound of muffled sobbing, Sam turned to look at the small forest of trees lining the small courtyard. He had forgotten about the young woman who almost became the werewolves’ latest victim.

Sam sighed and called out, “It’s okay now—they’re all dead.”

The young woman got up from the trees and shakily headed towards Sam and safety. She kept her gaze on Sam trying not to see the bloody bodies that lay on the ground.

As she reached Sam, she grasped on to him with an iron grip and just clung to him.

 _Damn_ run through his mind as he tried to ease her hold. He hated dealing with victims and he should have just left as soon as he had finished killing the werewolves. Now he had to deal with a traumatized girl.

Sam had no choice but to take her with him and drop her off at a nearby clinic. As they walked up to the door of the clinic—the girl was still clinging desperately to him.

He stopped at the door of the clinic and very calmly removed her hand off his arm, “You’ll be okay here.” He gestured towards the warm glow coming from inside the clinic. “I need to go.”

With that he knocked on the door and left her there shivering with shock. Sam couldn’t do anything about her trauma—that was up to the professionals. He needed to get back to the Campbells.

~~~~~~~

A few days after his successful solo werewolf hunt, Sam had just finished up his daily training routine and was heading towards the compound’s kitchen when he passed Samuel’s office. As he passed the door, he could hear two voices coming from the office since the door was opened slightly. He thought nothing of it until he heard his name being mentioned.

In that moment, Sam stopped and checking that no one had seen him, he opened the door a little wider and eavesdropped on the conversation.

“Sam’s still a little wet behind the ears even with the influence of the powder but he is going to be a fantastic super-hunter. I know you say that he is one of the best-- I still find it hard to believe that it was John Winchester who trained him but seeing Sam now you’d never know that.” Samuel said to a man dressed all in black— that was all Sam could make out through the gap in the door.

The man in black chuckled and replied in a thick British accent, “Sam is quite a badass when he wants to be. Don’t buy into his “I’m innocent” charade.”

Samuel frowned, “Alright. But I still think that we don’t need him. He is a burden that is unnecessary. Giving him the powder and training him is a waste of time and effort.”

The man looked down at his whiskey and said softly, “I didn’t bring you and your kin back and breathing just so that you can play tricks. I brought you here to keep things in order—Sam is the prize here and the main reason why you’re now breathing real air and not in that crappy heaven you cooked up for yourself. If you can’t keep a lid on him and make sure that he toes my line then well, I can pull the plug for you and yours and you’ll never get back your precious Deana and Mary. Do I make myself clear?”

Samuel swallowed and nodded his head, “Yes, Sir. I understand.”

“Good. I like to know that my employees understand me.”

The man got up from his chair and started to walk towards the door. “I’ll be back soon and I expect you to have Sam out and about in the field helping you gather the information I want about Alphas, preferably getting me an Alpha or two would be ideal.”

Samuel stood up and said, “Yes, Sir.”

The man turned towards the door and Sam backed away knowing that any second now he would be discovered. He tried to look inconspicuous by turning around and coming from the opposite direction as if he was just walking by. As Sam “walked” by the office, the office door fully opened and the man in black stepped out. He was not so tall, was about middle-aged and he had brown hair along with a gentlemanly look about him.

The man looked up, saw Sam and smiled. “Fancy meeting you here, Sam. Enjoying your stay with the Campbells? I do hope that they are treating you well.” The man said with his thick British accent.

Sam stared at the man, how did he know who he was? As far as he knew—people didn’t know that he was alive much less his real identity. Most hunters now knew him as Maxwell Johnson, Samuel’s grandson.

It must have shown on his face because the man laughed, “Sam, Sam. You do know how to make me laugh. I’m Crowley, Samuel’s current boss. I’m your boss now too and I expect some great things from you.”

With that, Crowley strolled away leaving Sam in the hallway staring after him.


	8. Part 5

Now that Sam knew about Crowley—Samuel was much more open about hunting with him. He gave Sam more information about Crowley’s current project for them—hunting Alphas.

Sam was amazed to discover that monsters apparently had their own leaders—the first of their kind. According to the myths, these Alphas were created by the Mother herself. Their creation seemed to parallel human creation. It seemed fitting in a twisted way in Sam’s eyes; therefore there couldn’t be claims of who came first. No who came first, reflecting the famous chick or the egg dilemma. As long as there had been man’s foot print on the earth, there had been a similar foot print done by a monster.

Samuel tasked Sam with the Alpha research, partly to bring him up to date on what they had found about Alphas and it never hurt to have fresh eyes taking a look at the data. He found it fascinating because as far as he could tell—the alphas themselves were stuff made of legend and no hunter in known hunting history had ever come up against one, at least not knowingly.

Which brought up the question—how did Crowley and Samuel know about them?—or on second thought- how did **Crowley** know about them? Sam was almost certain that Crowley was the one who told Samuel about the Alphas and where to start looking for them.

 _Who was Crowley then?_ Sam thought to himself. Crowley couldn’t be a hunter because according to the stories, no hunter had ever come across Alphas. Crowley had to at least confirm their existence in order to be certain that they could be found. As far as Sam knew, any hunter would make it public that there actually were Alphas and not keep it a secret so what was Crowley up to? And better yet—what did he want from Sam and the Campbells?

It was all a mystery to Sam and a part of him didn’t want to solve it because he had a feeling that by solving the mystery—he would discover that things weren’t what they were. He couldn’t do it—the Campbells, especially Samuel, were his family and he had to trust them. That is what family was all about—trust. They had done so much for Sam already—he felt that he had to trust Samuel and the rest of the Campbells. If they said that Crowley was okay, then he was.

But there was something really fishy about Crowley that bothered Sam to his core. He couldn’t dismiss the feeling that there was more to Crowley. But before he could research Crowley and discover the truth about him, Sam discovered a possible lead for the whereabouts of the Vampire Alpha. He had found out that there was going to be a big gathering of vampire lovers and Goths in Eerie, Indiana in a month’s time. There was nothing so special about idiot morons who loved to pretend that they were vampires and Goths but really they were only human.

The thing that caught Sam’s eye was an associate website he had found on the homepage of this gathering. What was so peculiar about this website was that very little of the writing wasn’t in English, rather it was in Latin. There were secret messages for vampires to come to the town’s old cemetery where their leader would await them at midnight of the second day of the gathering.

There was no mention of an Alpha vampire anywhere but Sam was pretty certain that this ‘leader’ was the Alpha himself because why else would they go to such lengths to keep this a secret?

Sam immediately went to Samuel with his newfound information about the Vampire Alpha. Samuel looked very pleased at hearing that Sam was successful at getting the information and was surprised that it didn’t take long for Sam to find it. He put Sam in charge of arranging the hunt details alongside Gwen, since she was the compound’s head researcher and went over all the details of their hunts.

It took a couple of days of more research about the mythology and the area in which the gathering was going to take place before Sam and Gwen presented their hunting plan to the others.

As Sam walked into the room where he and Gwen would brief the other hunters, including new hunters who were recruited just for this hunt by Crowley, about the upcoming Vampire Alpha hunt, he was surprised to see Crowley chatting with Samuel at the far corner of the room. He pretended not to notice them as they both turned to look at him walk in.

Something was off with Crowley and Samuel but before Sam could wonder about what they were up to, the rest of the hunters had arrived and Samuel motioned to Sam and Gwen to start the presentation.

Sam let Gwen start off the presentation, “Sam and I have come up with a hunting plan for hunting down the Alpha Vamp. We know that it is going to be in Eerie, Indiana during the time of the ‘Vamp/Goth Lovers’ gathering. Sam, here, managed to get into the secret real Vamp site with the details and since he was the one who worked out all the ends and outs of the hunt, I’ll let him tell you about it.”

Gwen smiled at Sam and gestured to him to continue. “As Gwen said, this is going to take place in Eerie, Indiana in about nine days. The vampires who are coming to meet the Alpha will be doing so at the town cemetery at midnight on the second night. We all will be going and be dividing into teams. The teams will corner the cemetery from different angles in order to trap the Alpha Vamp. The teams are Mark and Ron, Gwen and Johnny, Mick and Sean, Christian and myself. Now each team—“

Samuel called out, “No. I want you to be with me, Sam. Let Christian partner one of the other teams.”

Sam was taken back by this because in the brief he and Gwen had run by Samuel earlier—he had not mentioned anything about wanting to participate in the hunt. In the time that Sam had known him—Samuel was contented with staying in the background and letting the younger hunters do the actual hunting.

Sam threw a look at Crowley. Samuel’s decision to come along on the hunt had to have come from the discussion that Sam had witnessed earlier. _What had they been talking about?_.

As the thought run through Sam’s mind, he noticed Crowley looking at him. Despite his earlier promise to himself that he would back down from Crowley and just trust Samuel and the others because they were family and they trusted Crowley, Sam had an uneasy feeling. He didn’t like whatever it was that Samuel and Crowley were planning.

He knew that he couldn’t do anything about it just yet but he would be on his guard. He didn’t like the feeling that he was being controlled and made to “perform” certain tricks.

Sam was brought back to reality by Gwen touching his arm to get his attention. He realized that she had been asking him to continue to explain the plan. Sam coughed to clear his throat in an attempt to distract everyone from his lapse in attention, “Okay, then.” He glanced back at Samuel, “Samuel and I will be Team Alpha and we will be the ones to actually approach the Vampire Alpha and capture him.”

At Samuel’s nod of approval, Sam continued to reassign Christian to Mick and Sean’s team and to inform the other teams of their roles in the upcoming hunt.

~~~~~~~

A day later, the hunters left the Campbell compound in order to drive to Eerie, Indiana and the Goth/Vampire gathering. Crowley came by to see them off which Sam found very interesting.

Immediately after Crowley arrived at the compound, he and Samuel went into Samuel’s office and were there for about half an hour. Whatever they spoke about was secret because they made no mention of it after they came out of the office and Crowley said his goodbyes to the rest of them.

Sam also noticed that Crowley was paying extra attention to him as if to gage how he was doing with everything. Sam felt like he was a bug under a microscope and he really didn’t like the feeling.

After they had finished packing the cars, Samuel immediately announced that he would be sharing with Sam. Sam wasn’t surprised by this especially if whatever Samuel and Crowley had to talk about had to do with him. Samuel got into the car on the driver’s side, “If you don’t mind—I’ll be taking the first driving shift,” he said to Sam, Gwen, and Mark, “Sam—why don’t you sit shotgun beside me.”

Knowing that Samuel was probably going to talk to him as per Crowley’s orders, Sam stiffened a little and nodded, “Fine.”

As Samuel drove, Sam sat quietly staring at the passing scenery. It had been a few hours since the start of the drive and they had barely left the state on their way to Eerie. It was a good thing that they had decided to set out about a week early. It was too bad that they couldn’t just take a plane there but with their supplies and weapons, they wouldn’t make it passed the airport security guards.

“Sam,” broke through Sam’s thoughts and he blinked and focused on Samuel who had been the one to call his name. As he focused on Samuel, Sam noticed that Mark had fallen asleep (which according to Christian—was one of Mark’s flaws as a hunter—the inability to stay awake in a moving vehicle) and Gwen was quietly sitting next to him and rereading their research notes about the upcoming hunt.

“Yeah,” Sam answered Samuel. He didn’t really want to talk to Samuel because the man had been playing him for so long. He didn’t know what to think. All he knew was that the man was the patriarch of the family and he had Sam’s life in his control. For a long time, Sam had accepted it but now knowing about Crowley made a difference. If Samuel hadn’t been forthcoming about Crowley then what else did Samuel lie about—had he lied about Dean? Could his dreams involving Dean been brought about by Samuel’s influence?

Thinking about his dreams in that connection just felt wrong to Sam. _No, Samuel didn’t have the power to change my dreams_ Sam decided. Samuel and the family had really done a lot for Sam and he couldn’t just turn his back on them.

Again, Samuel’s voice broke into Sam’s thoughts. “…good job. I know that you will excel at this hunt.”

Sam smiled a half smile, “Thanks. I want to be the best I can be.”

Samuel nodded in approval, “I’m proud of you Sam. You the best grandson a man could ask for.”

Sam stared out of the window and just nodded. It was weird how numb he felt at those words—when in the past, he knew that he would be filled with a lovely glow just hearing them. He would excel at this hunt and be the best hunter that he could be. After all was it the family business—to hunt things and to save people?

He and Samuel did not speak for the rest of the journey to their mid-way stop on their way to Eerie. In fact, on one of their rest stops to get more gas for the rest of the journey, Sam let Mark take his place next to Samuel with the excuse that he wanted to go over the research details again with Gwen. As he did so, Sam noticed that Samuel was watching him closely but he didn’t say a word about Sam’s excuse or the reason why Sam had wanted to switch seats with Mark.

When they had reached their motel where they would stay the night before continuing the journey to Eerie, Sam immediately got out of the car to arrange their rooms for the night (he had booked them ahead of time because having six-eight hunters together put a damper on the spontaneity of just showing up to a motel and getting rooms for everyone).

Through the organized chaos of sorting out the rooms, Sam had made certain that he wouldn’t end up with either Samuel or Christian as roommates—preferring to bunk with one of the new guys, Mick. It had solved the problem of what to do if either Christian or Samuel approached him about Crowley. His resolve to trust them depended on it—he couldn’t afford it to be shaken by observing something else that was contradictory to what he had been shown by them in the past.

~~~~~~~~

Eventually, the convoy of hunters arrived in Eerie, Indiana. Due to Sam’s and Gwen’s careful planning, the hunters had enough time to canvas the town and to do some on location research namely seeing how far the cemetery was from where the main event—the Vampire/Goth gathering—was to be held.

Surprisingly, Samuel let Sam take control for the pre-hunt stuff. Sam savored the new responsibility and took it as a sign that Samuel was opening up to him and trusting him more. It made Sam feel guilty just a little bit for doubting Samuel in the first place. He vowed to do better and he took the responsibility of supervising the hunt seriously.

Sam had the hunters split into teams. Each team was responsible for canvassing a different area. Sam noticed that while the main event wasn’t for another day or two, already there were people dressed as vampires or Goths. Oddly enough, Sam was amazed to see that there were children among the event attendees (most likely one or both of the parents were into to the vampire/goth scene and considered the event as a nice family outing).

As for actual real vampires who were coming to town for different reasons—they were very cleverly hidden because for the first two days since their arrival in town, none of the hunters could find any real vampire. Or they hadn’t begun to arrive yet but Sam seriously doubted that because the Alpha was involved and if it were him—he sure would want to be in town as early as possible in order to get some good seats or whatever.

He and Gwen took all the information from the teams and tried to find a plausible location for where the vampires were staying. There was no indication to their whereabouts and if Sam hadn’t found the site that clearly stated that there was going to be a meeting with the Alpha Vamp, the hunters wouldn’t have known that there was any real supernatural activity going on. The night before the vampire meeting, they finally got lucky—or unlucky since Mark, while on a sweep of the area, managed to run into a vampire who started to attack him. Christian who was Mark’s teammate at the time, managed to decapitate the vampire and bring Mark back to the motel.

As everyone rushed to get first aid supplies to treat Mark, Sam looked down at Mark lying in the bed and realized that he had grown fangs while he was still unconscious—he had been turned.   
Sam only felt the slight twinge of regret that they had lost Mark because now surely they would need to kill him. What a way for a hunter to die—after being turned into one of the things he hunted.

Sam felt responsible for Mark’s plight and felt that it was up to him to kill him and put him out of his misery. As Sam picked up the machete lying on the table next to him and took a few steps towards Mark who still lay unconscious, he was stopped by Samuel grabbing a hold of his arm.

“Wait, Sam!” He said as he gestured to Christian and Gwen to enter the room. Each of them had their hands full—Christian carried a glass filled with what looked to be thick blood and Gwen carried a metal bucket.

“What is this?” Sam asked. He had known that Samuel had brought different herbs and materials with him and had asked to be allowed to not sweep the town with the rest of the hunters. He had been cooped up in his motel room for the past day and a half and this was the first time that Sam had actually seen him outside of it.

“It’s a cure for vampire bite/transfusion of vampire blood. It turns the victim back to being human as long as they haven’t given in to their own bloodlust.” Samuel replied as he motioned to Christian and Gwen to tend to Mark and give him the cure. “Sam, come outside with me. I want to talk to you—I know that you have a lot of questions. Let Christian and Gwen do their job.”

As soon as the door closed behind them, Samuel turned to Sam, “I know that you’re angry that I never mentioned anything about this to you—but it is a secret family cure and I was afraid that you would go all gung-ho on me if you knew that we had a cure for a vampire bite/vampire blood transfusion. That you would order everyone to danger themselves in that way. I didn’t want that so I didn’t tell you.”

Sam nodded in agreement. It really didn’t matter that they had a cure. All he cared about was getting the Alpha and finishing the hunt. He had been prepared for some causalities on their side and now that they had a cure? Well, it was all the better in his mind. No he wouldn’t be reckless with his fellow hunters’ lives but if the job needed to be done—it needed to be done no matter the cost.

~~~~~~~

Finally, the night of the vampire meeting came and the hunter teams took their places in the delicate and intricate hunt. Samuel and Sam took up their positions in the cemetery, crouching behind some grave stones that were nearest to the vampire meeting place. They didn’t have to wait long because a second past midnight, vampires started literally popping up in the cemetery and started to move towards the huge mausoleum where in its shadows the Alpha was to meet them.

Sam’s plan was to wait until they could get a visual on the Alpha and then put forward the most suitable plan of capturing him alive (Sam and Gwen had prepared a few scenarios for their handling of the Alpha). As soon as all the vampires had gathered, a white light lit the sky and when it faded—there stood, in front of the mausoleum door, the Vampire Alpha. He was dark-skinned and had an old and ancient look about him.

The Alpha held up his hands asking his followers to be quiet and started talking in a deep, bewitching voice, “My children, we gather here today because of the repercussions that came after having Lucifer wander our earth as well as the repercussions following his capture in the cage again…”

Sam tuned out the Alpha’s voice as he nodded to Samuel and spoke softly in to the microphone on his jacket lapel; “Go!” he ordered as he and Samuel crept nearer and nearer to the vampires still in captivated by their Alpha’s speech to them.

The hunters, armed with machetes, bows and arrows tipped with dead man’s blood shot and cut through the vampires as if they were animals. The first vampires went down without a fight but then others caught on to what was happening and started fighting back.

Sam lost sight of Samuel as he zeroed in on the Alpha’s location. Instead of fighting alongside his children, the Vampire Alpha had chosen the coward’s way of fighting in Sam’s opinion—he had fled. Unfortunately for him—Sam was hot on his trail. Unfortunately for the humans who had gathered for the Vampire/Goth Lovers fest in town—the Alpha was headed straight for them.

As he chased the Alpha through the crowd, Sam noticed that the Alpha was headed straight towards a young family in the crowd—the parents were dressed in Goth while their little girl of about five or six wore ordinary clothes. The Alpha plowed into the parents while grabbing a hold of the girl and just kept on running. He finally ran into a dark alleyway where Sam caught up with him. As Sam neared him, the Alpha gently lifted the crying little girl in his arms and tilted her head to reveal her neck. He kept his gaze on Sam’s as he bent his own head to bite at the young neck, drawing blood. The girl sobbed and struggled to get out of his grip with little success. He sucked on the bite like he was sucking a lollipop—and the girl went limp.

Sam neared the two of them, with his bow and arrow at the ready, keeping his gaze looked on the Alpha’s ancient ones.

The Alpha’s deep and bewitching voice broke the tense quiet of the alleyway, “Ah, to what to I deserve the honor of having the Great Sam Winchester hunt little old me down?”

Sam tightened his hold on the bow in order to hide his shock that the Alpha knew who he was—he knew his real name and not the alias (Maxwell Johnson) that Samuel and Crowley had given him to use on hunts. “Put her down and this will all end as peacefully as it can.”

The Alpha chuckled quietly, “Sammy, my boy. Now why should I do that? When I have a lovely treat in my hands.” He sucked the little girl’s neck once again.

Sam shook his head, “Fine. Be like that. Bite her. Do whatever you want with her. I’m only here to make sure that you’re alive when I capture you.”

This time, the Alpha let out a loud rambling laugh, “Crowley and his minions have truly succeeded with you, Young Winchester. You’ve been changed to fit his agenda and not your own. I almost feel sorry for you— now you really don’t live up to your reputation. It’s more your brother’s style then yours although they’ve upped it times a million.”

At hearing the Alpha’s admission about Crowley, Sam lowered the bow. “What?” He managed to choke out past his tightening chest.

Taking another suck of the girl’s neck, delighting both in the taste of her blood as well as Sam’s horror finding out that he had been royally duped, the Alpha continued to tell Sam, “Crowley knew that if he could get a super-charged hunter on his side—he could tip the scale in his favor. And who better than the angst-ridden and conveniently located in hell youngest Winchester? Who had already been chosen by Lucifer? You, my friend, have the ultimate seal of approval for all demonic kind.”

Sam frowned and stood his ground, “No. You’re the one who’s lying. Crowley and Samuel only want what is best for me.”

The Alpha caught Sam’s eyes and smirked, “My, my—it seems thou doth protest much young sir.” He looked down at the limp little girl in his arms. “Why don’t we put your belief to the test shall we now?”

He looked at Sam once more before biting into his own wrist and drawing blood. With his other hand, the Alpha drew the girl closer and nudged her mouth open, to feed her the blood. “That’s my girl. Don’t drink too fast—we wouldn’t want you to get sick now do we?” He grinned up at Sam who had come nearer to the two of them, bow and arrow still at the ready.

The words the Alpha next spoke sent a chill down Sam’s spine, “I know about your grandfather’s Vampire cure. Let’s see if he will use it to cure this little one of this so-called disease. Now I’m not a betting man, but there is always a time to try new things I suppose—so Sam, here’s the deal—if your grandfather does save this little girl, I will personally send you a message where I will be within two weeks and you can come and capture me. I will come reasonably quietly with little fuss. But if your grandfather doesn’t, then you stop hunting me down and get your grandfather and Crowley to stop bothering my children. And don’t worry about how I will know if he does it or not—I’m connected to all my children. It sounds like a good deal doesn’t it, Sam? A win-win situation for you?”

The Alpha waited for Sam to think it over. It didn’t take long for Sam to jerk his head slightly in agreement. He had to believe that Samuel would save the girl. With that, the Alpha threw the girl at Sam who caught her and he literally disappeared into thin air. Not a second later, Samuel and Christian came rushing into the alleyway.

“Sam!” They both shouted as they caught sight of him hugging a bundle to his chest, his weapons lying on the ground next to him.

Samuel glanced around the darkened alley, searching for the Alpha. “Where is he, Sam?”

“Sam!” Christian bent down to touch Sam who just sat there frozen. At Christian’s touch, Sam came alive again and started to beg Samuel, “Please save her!”

In that instant, the little girl stirred to life in Sam’s arms. She immediately opened her mouth and her new fangs came out. She was hungry.

Christian made Sam let go of her and lay her on the ground. Christian pulled Sam away from her and Sam pushed him away, trying to reach out to the girl. He pleaded with Samuel, “Please use the cure on her, please! I know that you won’t just let an innocent girl become this monster. I know that you’re not like that!” For some reason, in the back of his mind, he knew that he shouldn’t mention the deal that the Alpha Vampire struck with him. If he uttered a word of it, Samuel would immediately give the girl the cure and Sam wanted to see what Samuel would do in this situation.

The little vampire girl licked her lips in preparation for her meal and edged closer to Sam and Christian.

Meanwhile, Samuel hadn’t yet uttered a word or given a response to Sam’s plea. He nodded to Christian who grabbed a hold of Sam—tighter this time. Finally Samuel spoke quietly, “Sam, I can’t give her the cure. It is only for using on hunters who are critical in our war. I’m sorry, son. With another nod to Christian, who started to forcibly remove Sam from the alley, Samuel turned to the girl whilst removing the machete that hung at his belt.

Sam struggled with all his might to get out of Christian’s hold but somehow the new truths he had learned tonight made him weaker than he had ever been and finally he just meekly followed Christian. At the girl’s final scream before death, Sam only flinched. He looked up as Samuel came out of the alley with his bloody machete.

 _The Alpha was speaking the truth_ run in Sam’s head over and over. He declined the others’ offer to return to the motel and said that he wanted to just be by himself. Both Samuel and Christian looked at him worriedly but they let him go—after making sure that he did have his weapons and could defend himself if need be.

~~~~~~~

After walking aimlessly for a while, Sam ended up in a darkened playground. He couldn’t believe that Samuel hadn’t saved the girl with the cure—he had been so sure that he would—that now Sam didn’t know what to think. Everything he had been taught since waking up in the Compound had been a lie. He knew this for certain now. What was he going to do? He had no family and nowhere to turn besides the Campbells especially after Samuel had made it clear that they were the only family left that would accept him.

As he sat on the bench, leaning forward with his head in his hands, he felt a gentle wind blow past him. It was odd because it had not been a windy night. Not even a second later, he felt something in his jacket pocket. He took a piece of paper out. On the piece of paper was written: _If you want to find out more about your true self, call Bobby._ Underneath there was a phone number given.

This confused Sam because as far as he knew, no one but the Campbells and Crowley know who he really is. But he remembered what had happened in the alleyway and what the Alpha had told him. Maybe this Bobby could help him. It was worth a shot. At the very least—he would be able to tell Sam more about who Sam really was. His sense of purpose renewed, Sam got up and headed back to the motel and the rest of the hunters. Now all he had to do was to come up with a plan to contact Bobby.


	9. Part 6

Sam knew that he had to find a way of contacting Bobby before they all left Eerie and headed back to the compound. Once he was back at the compound with Samuel and the others, Sam felt sure that they would monitor his every move. No, he had to contact this Bobby before they got back.

The next day as everyone was packing their stuff up, Sam excused himself saying that he had already packed and wanted to get some fresh air. No one argued with him, Samuel especially was being extra attentive to him after what had happened with the little girl. All in all, Sam was glad to be able to get out on his own. First of all, he went to a cell phone shop to purchase a new cell from which to make his call to Bobby. He didn’t trust the Campbells at all and couldn’t be sure that they were monitoring him via his cell phone.

Sam walked back to the playground he had ended up at after Samuel had killed the little girl and the Vampire Alpha had disappeared. He went to sit on a bench and for a few minutes just sat there watching the little children who were playing. Had he been that innocent once too? Sam doubted it but something told him that it wasn’t true—that someone had cared enough to shield him and to give him a childhood. _Dean._ Thinking about Dean, who must have cared a lot about Sam in order to give him something so precious, Sam removed the piece of paper which had Bobby’s number on it and dialed the number.

It rang for about a minute before a gruff voice answered. “Hello?”

Sam suddenly felt nervous and whispered into the phone, “Are you Bobby?

On the other side, Bobby gasped out, “Sam?! Is that you?”

Stunned that Bobby knew about him, Sam asked, “How you know that I was Sam?”

Bobby sighed, “I had gotten intel that there was a new hunter working with the Campbells and I did some research and came to the conclusion that it must have been you, Sam. Especially since all the other hunters whom I knew were accounted for and it couldn’t have been a greenhorn rookie—your hunts sounded more professional than that. I did desperately want to contact you but you were too deeply involved with the Campbells.”

“I didn’t even know about you until last night when I found a piece of paper in my pocket with your number written on it.”

Over the phone, Bobby sucked in a deep breath as Sam admitted to how he found Bobby’s number. Bobby murmured, “He finally did it.” Focusing back on the conversation, Bobby replied, “Can you get away from the Campbells and come and see me in South Dakota?”

“I think that I can—I just need to find a hunt in the area so they don’t get too suspicious.”

Bobby agreed, “Good. I’ll look at things here and maybe I’ll find a hunt for you. In the meantime, Sam, you really shouldn’t trust the Campbells. They have to be doing something to keep you in their control.”

Sam started to shake his head in denial to Bobby’s accusation—as far as he knew, despite his mistrust of them at the current moment, none of the Campbells had done something to control him, but then he thought about how helpful and insistent they were with keeping him hydrated with the most lovely water and drinks he had ever drank. He finally admitted that to Bobby, “I think that they are putting something in my drink and when I drink it—I do feel different afterwards.”

“Okay. At least we now know that they are doing something to your system in order to keep control over you. Don’t drink anything they give you.”

At that second, Sam’s Campbell-issued cell rang. Sam looked at the display, ‘SAMUEL’ and quickly said goodbye to Bobby with the promise to call him as soon as possible. Sam waited a minute after he got off the phone to Bobby before he called Samuel back and apologized that he had lost track of time and was heading back to the motel.

~~~~~~~

When they got back to the compound, Sam made sure to keep his distance from Samuel and the others. Although, he couldn’t stop them offering him bottles of water or drinks and making him food. Since the conversation he had with Bobby, Sam was suspicious of the Campbells. So at every opportunity he had, he would pretend to eat or drink whatever they gave him and acted like they expected. It was exhausting, so Sam was happy when Bobby finally got back to him and texted him about a hunt. Sam researched the hunt some more just in case Samuel or one of the others wanted to check on him. The hunt involved a simple haunting—it involved a family of a father and his two young sons who were motherless.

Sam assumed that Bobby must have known what would attract Sam to the hunt and what wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows if he were to go on this hunt. Research done, Sam headed to Samuel’s office to get Samuel’s approval.

“Why this hunt, Sam? Why now?” Samuel asked.

“I need to go and do this hunt—it…it sort of reminds me of my own family.” He hoped that Samuel wouldn’t want more details.

Samuel stared at him and asked, ‘Why suddenly are you concerned about your family, Sam? You’ve been adjusting to us just fine until now… with no word about your father or Dean, and now suddenly you want to go on a hunt which reminds you of them?”

“Yeah, I do. After the Vamp Alpha hunt fiasco—I need to get back into the game. I think that I was more shook up than I thought.”

Samuel sighed. “Fine. Take a few days and go but take Christian with you and give Gwen the details you found.”

Sam shook his head. “I want to do this by myself—like that werewolf hunt.”

This time, it took longer for Samuel to respond to Sam’s request. He stared at Sam who really tried not to fidget but couldn’t help but feel like he was in the hot seat. After what seemed like an hour, but in reality was a minute, Samuel nodded his consent and told Sam to give Gwen all the details. He told Sam that he could leave an hour after he had brought Gwen up to speed.

Sam thanked him and left Samuel’s office. He immediately went to Gwen and gave her the research that he found on the hunt. Sam had thought that it would be a quick review but Gwen wanted to go over many details a few times so instead of being with her for half an hour—he ended up going over the hunt for two and a half hours. Sam barely had time to pack his stuff and head out to the hunt. On his way to South Dakota, he was able to finally call Bobby to let him know that he was on his way and Bobby gave him instructions to reach Singer Salvage Yard.

~~~~~~~

It took Sam about a day of solid driving to get to Bobby’s. He arrived and drove through the rusted gate and up to the house, past heaps of old and broken down cars. Sam was getting an odd sense of déjà vu about the place—which he supposed made sense if he really had spent a lot of time here before he ended up with the Campbells. Sure enough, a Rottweiler came running towards Sam barking and wagging his tail. Another sign that Sam must have been a regular at Bobby’s especially when the dog jumped on him with joy as soon as Sam had gotten out of the car.

As Sam was trying to calm the dog’s enthusiasm in his arrival, he heard a deep chuckle. Before Sam looked up to see what Bobby looked like—at least he hoped that it was Bobby—a whistle and a curt call, “Trey!” rang out and the dog obediently left Sam to go and join his master.

Sam looked up as Bobby, a man with a beard and wearing a baseball hat, came walking up to him. “Hello, Sam.” Bobby stopped in front of Sam and made as if to hug him but at the last minute changed his mind and settled on holding out his hand for Sam to shake.

“Hi. So you’re Bobby. Nice to meet you.” Sam said feeling very self-conscious. It was a new feeling for Sam—it was as if Bobby knew more about him than Sam ever did and was looking to see what changes he had been through. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling especially since he felt the anguish coming off Bobby in waves.

“Come into the house,” Bobby told Sam as he led him up the steps and into a front hallway. Having been only exposed to the Campbell compound up until now, Sam didn’t have much to go on in regards to how hunters lived. Bobby’s place definitely gave off the air of ‘a hunter lives here’ with Devil’s Traps printed on ceilings and floors and ancient books everywhere Sam could see. There was where the similarity with the Campbell compound ended—Bobby’s place had a homier feel to it—at least that was the vibe that came off to Sam. That and the same intense déjà vu feeling from earlier gripped him again.

He was leafing through an ancient book when Bobby came up to him and handed him a bottle of beer. Sam looked at the bottle in his hand. He didn’t want to offend Bobby—he had just met him and knew that he wanted to help, but because of Samuel and the others, Sam was suspicious of any drink that he didn’t prepare himself.

Bobby noticed Sam’s hesitation and gestured towards him with his own beer, “It’s okay. You can trust me. The only thing that is added to the beer that wasn’t there before is Holy water but since you’re not a demon,” Sam smiled at that, “you should be totally fine.”

Sam saluted Bobby and finally drank beer. It was refreshing and soothing at the same time and made him feel relaxed and loose. He immediately tensed up again as Bobby stared at him.

“You’re not the same.” He sighed, “I guess that being in the cage and ending up with the Campbells and Crowley can change anyone… much less you, Sam.”

As Bobby mentioned the cage, Sam had flashes of pain and cruel voices. He whispered, “The cage?”

At Sam’s question, Bobby’s eyes widened, “They really didn’t tell you anything did they? Well, I hate to be the one who tells you everything—but you have a right to know.” He gestured to Sam to go and sit on the couch in what could be termed the living room but rather it was just an open plan room that connected the kitchen and Bobby’s main library/office. Sam drank once more from his beer as he walked over to the couch—hoping that once again it would relax him but at the sound of Bobby’s sigh as he thought of where to begin, Sam’s stomach just twisted into more knots.

“Sam…you and your brother Dean. You know who Dean is don’t you?” Bobby stopped and smiled to himself as Sam nodded that he did, "At least they told you that. Well, it is a very long story going back to your parents—but the more recent story is that you sacrificed yourself to save the world from Lucifer or rather—you sacrificed yourself to save _Dean._ "

“Lucifer? Isn’t he a myth?” Sam asked, shocked. It was true that as a hunter, he had seen impossible things on hunts; things that normal people would never believe in a million years actually existed. But _Lucifer_?

“He does exist, Sam and apparently you were custom-designed from the time you were a baby to be his meat-suit.” Bobby said, watching Sam’s reaction to the news. He knew from talking to Dean that the first time that Sam had learned his fate being Lucifer’s vessel—he didn’t take it very well. And that was with all his memories intact and with his soul in its rightful place.

Sam went quiet. _I was Lucifer’s meatsuit?_ He couldn’t believe it—it didn’t seem to be possible but yet hadn’t he woken up with the Campbells, without any memory whatsoever? And somehow he doubted that Bobby or Dean didn’t care enough about him that they would just send him there. A few things were bothering him though, like what happened in hell and how he even ended up with the Campbells instead of being back with Bobby and Dean. And where was Dean?

He immediately asked Bobby about everything he had been wondering about.

Bobby sighed and got a wistful look on his face. “You and Dean have both been to Hell and from what Dean told me—after I threatened him—you two apparently have a knack for getting yourselves into Hell and back out again.”

Sam nodded and opened his mouth to ask another question when his cell phone rang. It was Samuel. Sam took his cell out of his pocket and looked at Bobby, apologetic. He didn’t know why but he didn’t want Bobby to know more about the Campbells than he already did. Sam wanted to keep things separate for now. Bobby, on the other hand, had no such feelings and he gestured for Sam to hand him the phone. He pressed ‘accept call’ and put it on loudspeaker.

Immediately, Samuel’s voiced boomed out, “Sam! Sam! Why haven’t you called us in the past two days? What about the hunt? Where are you? SAM! ANSWER ME!”

Bobby chuckled and answered for Sam, “You must be the infamous Samuel Campbell, grandfather to Sam and Dean Winchester? How do you do? I haven’t introduced myself- I’m Robert Singer, honorary father to the Winchester boys.”

After Bobby’s introduction, there was silence on the other side of the line. The next words from Samuel were, “Where is Sam? If you have his cell then he’s nearby. Let me speak to him NOW!”

Sam coughed to clear his throat and said, “Hello Samuel.”

“So that hunt was just a lie, Sam? You just made up everything to run away from us—to Mr. Singer? Who isn’t family despite what he says? I’m disappointed in you.”

Sam responded with a soft whisper, “No, you were the ones who started it—you went behind my back. The whole ‘we’re family’ crap was just a front for what you really wanted from me. You didn’t care about me—not like a real grandfather should.”

Bobby interrupted the conversation between Samuel and Sam, “And the hunt is real, just FYI. I’ve got two men out doing it so the only thing that Sam is guilty of is coming to me—and why should he feel guilty about that? You’ve have kept him from his real family—people who care about him.”

They could hear Samuel’s sneer over the phone, “Oh really, Mr. Singer? Then why haven’t you or your precious Dean tried to find Sam like we did? We took care of him when he first came out of the cage…”

At the revelation that Samuel knew that he had been in hell and the cage, Sam exploded, “YOU KNEW?! Why didn’t you tell me? You knew that I wanted to know!”

“I’ll explain everything you want to know, Sam, but just come back home to us.”

“No. I can’t. The Alpha Vamp was right and I trust Bobby to tell me the truth. I just don’t trust you anymore. I won’t be coming back.” Sam knew that his behavior was borderline childish but he didn’t care. He couldn’t go back to Samuel and the rest of the Campbells. Ever. They wanted to use him and from what Bobby had told him—he felt that he had been used enough.

“Bye, Samuel.” Bobby’s finger hovered over the ‘end’ button. Samuel’s parting words to Sam were that he wouldn’t forget what Sam had done and that they would be coming for him. “Good riddance!” Bobby said, as he cut off Samuel mid-rant.

Sam smiled to himself as Bobby went on about his ‘so-called’ family. Here with Bobby—he definitely felt that he belonged, just on the virtue of being himself and nothing else. He didn’t have to prove himself. He was accepted.

Getting back to what they had been talking about before Samuel called, he asked, “Bobby, where’s Dean? Did something happen to him?” It was the one thing that Sam was dying to know but Samuel’s call had interrupted his and Bobby’s Q and A session.

Bobby looked at him and replied, “Dean’s OK, I suppose.” At Sam’s look of horror, he hastened to explain, “He and I haven’t talked to each other in about a year, when he went off grid. Before you…ah…jumped, you had asked him to go to see an old girlfriend of his—Lisa and her son, Ben. As far as I know, that is where he is. He didn’t want to continue hunting without you by his side.”

“And how did you know that I came back?”

Bobby smiled at this, “Well Let’s just say that a mutual friend of ours came to me and told me that you were back topside and that one day you would call me for help. He wanted me to know and not to be so skeptical when you finally came—that it would really be you.”

Sam got up. “Bobby thanks for everything you’ve told me and for letting me come—being a virtual stranger and all. I guess that I’ll just be on my way.”

Sam turned to open the door and go outside but Bobby stopped him, “Sam—you’re welcome to stay as long as you want, or you can leave. I won’t stop you. But what about Dean? Doesn’t he deserve to know about you being back? He was a wreck when you jumped into the pit and he definitely hasn’t been the same. Yes, I’ve told you that he’s left hunting—his reaction to losing you—I can tell you that your reaction to losing him three years ago to Hell was the exact opposite. You went ‘Super-Hunter’ determined to avenge him. But you two are exactly the same in one thing—you need one another to really live and be happy. It’s twisted, no question about that, but that’s the way you two are—inseparable.”

“No. Dean got out of this life and I’m going to continue to let him keep his ‘normal’. He deserves it. He also doesn’t need his screw-up little brother back in his life.”

As Sam and Bobby headed down the steps to the car, Bobby shook his head. “No. That’s where you’re wrong Sam. Yes, there is no doubt that Dean—and you—deserve to have a normal, no hunting life. But Dean deserves to have the choice—to come back or to stay with Lisa if he wants to. Don’t be like Samuel or your Daddy—give him the choice to decide what _he_ wants to do. Besides that, we’re going to need him with the whole Samuel and Crowley thing. We’ll need all the help we can get.”

Standing next to the car, Sam looked back at Bobby and finally nodded, “OK. I don’t like it. But you’re right. Dean needs to be told and given the choice.”

Sam got into his car and Bobby bent through the open car window to hand him a piece of paper. “This is Lisa’s address. Drive safe you hear? Call me when you get to a motel or whenever. Just to keep me updated. Good luck, Sam.”

Sam put the car in reverse and drove off to see Dean. He felt like he knew his brother but mostly through his dreams and they were supernaturally altered. Sam had no idea how Dean would greet him. But he had to try.

~~~~~~~

A few days later, Sam sat in his car and glanced up at the house across the street for a long minute. He then looked down at the piece of paper clutched in his hand highlighted by the car light. He had been doing this routine for the better part of an hour. The piece of paper had Lisa’s address written down on it, and was—Bobby told him, the place where Dean was staying.

The house was lit up from inside, with pretty white curtains at the windows. Sam couldn’t see much from where he was sitting in his car, but he could see vague silhouettes, three of them, in one of the rooms. The residents of the house were sitting down to their supper or relaxing afterwards. Sam couldn’t be sure.

Sam sat in his car for a few minutes glancing at the house and then at the piece of paper, occasionally putting his hand out to open the car door. He stopped himself. He just couldn’t. Despite what he had promised Bobby—to tell Dean he was back and to let him decide what he wanted to do—to come back to hunting or stay with Lisa. What would Dean think of him? Of not contacting him as soon as he had remembered him—Sam knew that he did try to find out where Dean was in the beginning—before Samuel and the cousins got a tight grip on him and his sanity on Crowley’s behalf. Sam felt ashamed because he just knew that if Dean had been in the same position, he would have been smart enough to see that he was being played. Dean would have resisted the brainwashing and come and gotten Sam.

Sam was just a failure. Why should Dean want to help him? Dean now had another family—Lisa and Ben. He, for sure, didn’t need a screw-up of a little brother who couldn’t do anything right. As his thoughts turned dark and inward, Sam closed his eyes and rested his head on the headrest. When he finally opened them and glanced back at Lisa’s house, he noticed a figure wearing a beige trench coat standing in the glow of the streetlight.

Sam quickly got out of the car and jogged across the street to where the man was standing. “Hey!” He called as he slid to a stop next to the man, reaching out to grab him. “What are you doing?”

The man turned to face Sam and smiled, “Hi Sam. I was wondering when you would get out of the car. I thought that I’d give you a little push.”

Surprised that the man knew his name, Sam took a step back. “How do you know me?” Frowning a little, he automatically reached for his gun—it wouldn’t do much good if the man was one of Crowley’s demons but it made him feel a whole lot safer.

The man chuckled. “I suppose that you wouldn’t remember me. I’m Castiel and you could say that I’m a friend of yours and Dean.”

It dawned on Sam—the cryptic message. “You were the one who sent me the message about contacting Bobby didn’t you?”

Castiel sighed. “Yes, that was me. At the time, I knew that you wouldn’t take kindly to seeing me—being with the Campbells and under Crowley’s thumb and all. I felt that I had to do something to help you—hence the message. I see that you did receive it or else you wouldn’t be here.”

“Yeah. Bobby told me that a mutual friend of ours informed him that I’d be coming and not to be too skeptical. You again I suppose?”

Castiel laughed, “Yes. I knew that it would be harder on you without adding Bobby’s neuroses to the mix. He tell you what he did to your brother when he came back from hell?”

“A little, I don’t really have all my memories back yet so it was nice to hear about things that had happened to me. I still feel that something is missing and while Bobby has been a big help… it just doesn’t feel 100% right to me. So here I am…” Sam gazed at the house—where his brother was, without him.

“Yes, here you are. And I’m here to help. I know how you can get your soul and all your memories back.”

“What are you talking about? How is that possible?”

“And you call yourself a hunter. It won’t be easy, but you’ve taken your first steps towards regaining them.” Soberly now, Castiel continued, “I wasn’t aware that they had decided to separate your body and soul. I guess that at the time, they thought it best, because of the extensive torture you went through.” As Castiel spoke, Sam got flashes of cruel laughing voices and a bright light. “You were in the _In-Between Place_ which is the most secure place for human souls. It is sacred to both angels and demons. They couldn’t have known what Crowley had planned.”

“Crowley took my body?” Sam asked. It did make sense—since how else would he end up with the Campbells and be trained to do Crowley’s bidding?

Castiel nodded, “Luckily for us, your soul was being kept in a different area so it was kept safe. I went to the One and asked to get your body and soul back together—and he agreed.”

Sam raised his eyebrow, “So why don’t I have my soul back in my body then?”

Castiel gestured towards Lisa’s house, “For a start, you aren’t ready to face the burden that comes with having a soul yet. You’ll need your brother’s help in getting your soul back completely as well as dealing with Samuel Campbell.”

Sam gazed back sadly at the house, “Do you think that he’ll accept me?”

“Knowing Dean as I do, it would never occur to him not to, and what is that saying? He would squeeze you?” Castiel thought for a second, “Huh, no—it is—he would beat you to a pulp for even thinking that. So why don’t you go and find out what he really thinks?”

Sam took one step towards the house, drawn to it by his own longing. A longing to finally belong and _fit_ somewhere again. Here was his second chance. As Sam took a few more steps towards the house, he turned back to thank Castiel. There was no one standing underneath the streetlight. Sam shook his head in dismay—how fitting for his guardian angel of sorts to disappear when it was least expected.

Turning back towards the house, Sam soon found himself standing at the door. He could hear the voices inside talking and laughing.

Sam took a deep breath, lifted up his hand and knocked on the door.

Almost immediately, a familiar voice called out, “Hang on! I’m coming.”

Sam knew that voice. He had heard it in his dreams. It was Dean’s voice.

A distorted shadow filled the tainted glass panel in the front door as the handle turned.

He noticed that Dean opened the door with a smile, “Hello…what can I…”

Sam took another deep breath—this was it. “Hi, Dean.”

Even without all of his memories, Sam knew that it was one of the few times he had caught his brother off guard. Dean just stood in the doorway stunned and speechless.

“Sammy?” Dean breathed.

“Yeah, Dean. It’s me.” Sam replied with a catch in his voice.

Sam’s confirmation was all it took for Dean to shake out of his frozen state, he immediately stepped forward, still hesitant as if he could not quite believe that it was Sam standing in front of him.

Dean looked at Sam’s face and with a sob grabbed a hold of Sam hugging him for dear life—as if he planned to never let go of him again.

Sam sighed. For the first time in a very long time, he actually felt safe. He knew that what Castiel had said was true—all he needed was Dean. Sam still didn’t have all of his memories or his soul, but he knew that with Dean’s help and support, he would get them back. He had Dean now by his side and together, Sam knew they were unbeatable.


	10. Additional Author Notes

**Additional Author Notes**

When I first thought of doing the big bang, I had become disenchanted with S6 and very unhappy with what they were doing with Sam and RoboSam, etc. I couldn’t in all honesty write a long story involving the boys’ brotherly love or write a story in an earlier season. All I could think of was ‘What did Sam go through the year that he was separated from Dean?’ I mean, the show had shown us snippets of Dean’s life with Lisa and Ben but nothing about Sam.

So I wanted to fill in the gap. That is when I first got the idea for ‘Sam I Am’. It didn’t work out trying to stick to the canon and imagining what went on because I couldn’t relate to Robo Sam at all.

That is when I wrote a note to myself—that not having a soul equals no memories unlike what the show described having no soul as that Sam has no conscious/morals and does things that he deems is logical, etc.

I didn’t base this on nothing rather I feel that our memories are an important part of our soul because they are essentially what define who we are. I see this with my grandfather who has got Alzheimer’s and while he still has his personality, without his memories—he is a changed man and is completely different to how he was before.

Finally the title ‘Sam I Am’—I wanted a title to reflect Sam’s questioning of his surroundings and the people with whom he had ended up (paralleling the questioning in Dr. Seuss' 'Green Eggs and Ham'). But I also wanted to reflect the fact that at the end of the story—he is certain that he is Sam and knows where he belongs.

 **Thanks**

I would like to thank for being such an incredible and fantastic cheerleader. From the moment, I signed on to do the big bang with a tentative ‘I might drop out’, she cheered me on and through her I found the amazing comm which turned out to be a god send because it motivated me to write during the rounds.

So Reaper, thank you for being there for me as a fellow writer, a cheerleader, and last but not least being a fantastic and caring mod!

Next I want to thank my artist, sailorhathor, who unknowingly took on a big bang newbie and had endless patience with me and my story. Her art really improved the story by showcasing the characters and the underlying theme of the story brilliantly. Here is [a link](http://spectral-eye.livejournal.com/71702.html) to her incredible art! Go and tell her how amazing it is :D

So Sailor, thanks so much and it was a blast working with you!

Finally, I would like to thank my beta . Sammy, you were so patient and helpful when I had huge writer’s blocks and so encouraging when I attempted to write my first ever fighting scenes. You gave me ideas and constructive criticism which made my story much better than it was. Because of you, the story actually makes sense!

Sammy, thanks again for the incredible beta-job you did.


End file.
